- 5/21/2025
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00:00A terrifying vibration shakes British Midland flight 92.
00:09There's sort of grinding noises and smells in the cabin.
00:13What is it, the engines?
00:15It's obvious that the crew were pretty rattled by this.
00:19I'm thinking we've got a serious problem here.
00:22One of the worst crashes in British history has a stunning cause.
00:29It's very difficult to accept that such a basic mistake could be made.
00:34And changes commercial aviation forever.
00:37The learning points from this incident have been game-changing.
00:46Made it, made it.
00:59It's a busy Sunday night at London's Heathrow Airport.
01:13The crew of British Midland flight 92 is completing final take-off preparations
01:18for a short flight to Belfast, Northern Ireland.
01:22Why don't you let them know we're ready to go?
01:25Will do.
01:27Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard.
01:29We'll just finish up our final checks.
01:32We'll have you on your way in just a few minutes.
01:39There are 118 passengers on the evening flight,
01:43including British soldier Nigel Baldwin, returning to duty in Northern Ireland.
01:48I was excited, just had an exciting weekend,
01:51making the final arrangements for our wedding.
01:53I just settled back like everybody else, you know,
01:57to what I thought was a comfortable flight.
02:05Midland 92, you're clear for take-off.
02:09You want to take it this time?
02:11Absolutely.
02:13Captain Kevin Hunt flew the plane in from Belfast.
02:17First officer David McClelland takes the controls for the return trip.
02:22Thrust set.
02:25Here we go.
02:27Their brand-new 737-400 has clocked only 521 hours in the air.
02:33It's the very latest version of the world's most popular passenger plane.
02:38P1, rotate.
02:42The flight is scheduled to take just 75 minutes.
02:47Midland 92 cleared to flight level 350.
02:51As flight 92 clears the busy airspace around Heathrow,
02:55the controller permits the crew to climb to their cruising altitude, 35,000 feet.
03:00Flight level 350, Midland 92.
03:05Can I have a coffee, too, please?
03:0813 minutes into the flight.
03:16What's that?
03:18I just knew there was something not quite right.
03:21There's sort of grinding noises and smells in the cabin that I wasn't used to.
03:31Oh, my God.
03:33Oh, my God.
03:35Oh, my God.
03:37Oh, my God.
03:39Oh, my God.
03:41Oh, my God.
03:43Oh, my God.
03:46Oh.
03:48You smell that?
03:50Does that smell good?
03:53There's a problem with one of the 737's two engines.
03:58Captain Hunt takes control,
04:00leaving his first officer to work out what's wrong with the plane.
04:04All pilots, the first thing is, fly the aeroplane.
04:07Make sure the aeroplane is safe,
04:09so that's making sure you're flying into control in the right place,
04:12and if they're not getting it back into the right place.
04:15What is it, the engines?
04:23It shouldn't be happening.
04:25So, one, we can hear it, two, you can physically feel it through.
04:29This is like a sort of a humming vibration.
04:32It's a fire, Kevin.
04:34Which one is it?
04:38It's the left.
04:40It's the left.
04:43Huh?
04:45It's the right one.
04:47I think with the noises and everything, they realised very rapidly
04:50it was something to do with one of the engines.
04:53It was the root cause of, A, the smoke,
04:55and, B, the vibration and the noise.
04:58The crew tries to stabilise the problem engine
05:01by reducing power on that side.
05:03OK, throttle it back.
05:05Throttle it back.
05:11ENGINE WHIRRS
05:17It'll be all right, man.
05:19I'm thinking, you know, they've got all these controls in the cockpit,
05:22they know what they're doing.
05:35Seems to be running all right now.
05:38The crew seems to have solved the immediate crisis.
05:41But we're stuck with the smoke.
05:45But want to get back on the ground as fast as possible.
05:50This is Midland 92. We've got an engine fire.
05:53We need to divert to East Midlands.
05:55Understood.
05:57Cleared for descent to 10,000 feet.
06:00It's an unusual situation.
06:02We've all practised it many, many times in the simulator.
06:05We do it every six months.
06:07But I think to actually do it for real on a dark night
06:11with the vibration and all that's going on, it's very demanding.
06:15I felt a sense of relief when the noise and everything stopped.
06:19I think, oh, it's OK, they've sorted it.
06:22Flight 92 is just 15 minutes from East Midlands Airport.
06:26It's closer than returning to Heathrow.
06:30Shutting down now.
06:32The crew springs into action.
06:35They shut down the engine so that the fire doesn't spread.
06:40In the cabin, Nigel Baldwin is struggling to stay calm.
06:44There was a heightened sense of that little bit of fear there,
06:47you know, in the back of your mind, what if?
06:49I think there's always that what if when you're flying.
06:57Ladies and gentlemen, we've had a problem with our right engine.
07:01Shut it down and we'll be diverting to East Midlands Airport.
07:05The stewards and stewardesses came round,
07:08taking the trays off us.
07:10Seatbelts, please.
07:12So we knew that, you know, they were taking precautions.
07:15And I'm thinking, we've got a serious problem here.
07:25Landing lights.
07:28On.
07:30The pilots will have to make the landing with just one engine.
07:33Flaps one, please.
07:35To land safely at low speed...
07:37Flaps one.
07:38..the pilots need to set their flaps to increase lift...
07:41Power, please.
07:42..and call for more power from their one remaining engine.
07:55At some point, the noises started again,
07:57and then this time it got worse.
08:01The pilots face a terrifying new danger.
08:04We're losing another engine.
08:06Incredibly, the left engine is now failing.
08:11Their plane could soon have no engine power at all.
08:16Fire bell on number one.
08:18An alarm warns the pilots that fire is consuming the engine.
08:24Flight 92 is less than 1,000 feet from the ground.
08:27The pilots need to think fast.
08:30Try relighting the other one.
08:34They try to restart the engine they shut down.
08:37It's not... I can't see...
08:40It won't start.
08:42One engine is dead, the other is in flames.
08:47I remember the flames coming over the top of the engine,
08:50and they were just sort of licking round the sides.
08:53I have to stretch the glide.
08:55Captain Hunt pulls up the nose of the plane,
08:58hoping to stay in the air long enough to reach the airport.
09:05But more and more alarms are filling the cockpit.
09:08Damn it!
09:10The stall warning shakes the captain's controls.
09:13A deadly sign that they're about to lose their lift.
09:24There were people screaming, there were people crying.
09:27You know, having fear for their lives.
09:34Brace! Brace!
09:42Prepare for critical landing.
09:50It was like, brace, brace, what do we do?
09:53Boom!
09:58Oh, no!
10:05There'd have been a little wind noise going over,
10:07everything would have been completely silent.
10:09So it would have been an extremely strange sensation.
10:13WHISTLE BLOWS
10:26I recollect my arms being just thrown around
10:29until the plane came to a rest.
10:34Having no control.
10:37Erm...
10:40That's quite eerie, actually.
10:44British Midland Flight 92 has slammed into an embankment
10:48beside the M1 motorway, just half a mile from the airport.
10:52It would have been just 15, 20 seconds more of power
10:56before that engine had failed.
10:58They'd have got there so heartbreakingly close.
11:02BEEPING
11:07Emergency crews reach the scene minutes after the crash.
11:12But getting to the survivors proves to be a huge challenge.
11:21The plane has been ripped apart.
11:24Argh!
11:28While emergency workers struggle to clear debris,
11:31Nigel Baldwin does what he can to help a fellow passenger.
11:35Come on!
11:37We've got to get you out.
11:41I had to bring her onto my chest and pull myself backwards
11:45along the cables and girders that were left because the plane...
11:51..was the only way I've described it,
11:54as a chicken carcass after a Sunday roast.
11:57Weak and feeble.
12:04The shattered fuselage has come to rest on a steep embankment
12:08where it's in danger of sliding down and killing more people.
12:12Experts from the Air Accidents Investigation Branch
12:15advise rescuers on the best way to secure it.
12:18We took a pragmatic view and roped the tail to trees
12:23so that it wasn't going to fall over.
12:30A dense tangle of broken seats
12:33is making it difficult to reach the survivors.
12:37Rescuers are astonished
12:39that no-one driving on the busy M1 motorway has been hurt.
12:43In fact, there were no victims on the ground,
12:46which we thought was absolutely remarkable.
12:4987 of the 126 people on board are alive,
12:53but many are injured, including Captain Hunt,
12:56who has a broken spine.
12:58Because of the steepness of the embankment that the aircraft was on,
13:02the emergency services were forming effectively a human chain,
13:05so as victims were pulled out from the wreckage,
13:08those stretchers were handed from one person to the next
13:11until they could be put into ambulances.
13:17With the rescue complete,
13:19Britain's Air Accidents Investigation Branch
13:21is preparing for the next stage of the rescue.
13:25With the rescue complete,
13:27Britain's Air Accidents Investigation Branch can finally get to work.
13:32Rob Carter is one of the first investigators at the scene.
13:36We arrived at the crash scene very late into the evening.
13:40All the emergency services were there, ambulance, fire, police.
13:44Some press people were just beginning to arrive.
13:47Tremendous amount of activity,
13:49and it took a minute to really assess just what was going on.
13:55BEEPING
14:00It was dramatic.
14:02Walked into the nose section, and I'm looking up at the ceiling,
14:05up at the roof of the aircraft.
14:07There are no overhead bins. That's really odd.
14:10And I realised, where is the aircraft floor?
14:17The crash has forced the closure of the M1 motorway,
14:21a major traffic artery.
14:23Investigators need to work as quickly as they can.
14:27Their first priority is getting their hands on the plane's black boxes,
14:31or flight recorders.
14:33Recovering the flight recorders, of course,
14:35is a very major priority at the beginning of an investigation,
14:38because they have to be centre-wide,
14:40they have to be downloaded and interpreted.
14:43Meanwhile, Rob Carter learns what he can from the layout of the crash site.
14:48I wanted to understand where all the bits of the structure
14:51and the aircraft were,
14:53and that led me up onto the embankment
14:56where the aircraft had had its first impact.
14:59Looks like the landing gear hit here.
15:02The plane has left deep gouges in the ground along its path.
15:06They give Carter his first hints about how the crash unfolded.
15:11The marks showed, almost in a textbook form,
15:14the attitude the aircraft was in when it hit the ground.
15:18The direction it was going, the position it was in,
15:21it was really helpful for developing what happened.
15:26Got close enough to see the runway lights.
15:30It must have been very devastating for the crew and for everybody on board.
15:36It's becoming clear the plane didn't have the speed it needed
15:39to reach the runway.
15:41The question is why.
15:43I think all of the team, their first impression was
15:46that the plane seems to have had some problem with engine power.
15:50The aircraft just didn't have the power to make it to the runway.
15:54Damn it!
15:58The pilots are too badly hurt to be interviewed.
16:01For now, investigators learn what they can
16:03from the controller on duty the night of the crash.
16:06They said they heard an engine fire.
16:09The controller explains that the crew reported a problem
16:12about 20 minutes before the crash.
16:15This is Midland 92. We've got an engine fire.
16:18We need to divert to East Midlands.
16:21Understood. Cleared for descent to 10,000 feet.
16:27The controller's story raises a question.
16:31The 737 aircraft has two powerful engines.
16:35How could a fire in one of them cause a plane to crash?
16:40The fatal crash of a British airliner near a busy motorway
16:44has frightened air travelers across the United Kingdom.
16:48AAIB engineer Chris Pollard heads up the investigation's engine team.
16:54If he had had one good engine,
16:57there would have been no issue about landing.
17:00So that was the initial mystery to solve.
17:05Damage to the engine fan blades soon confirms the investigators' hunch.
17:10The plane didn't have one good engine.
17:13Neither of them was working at the moment of impact.
17:17Both engines showed pretty low speed rotation at the impact.
17:21So it was a question of sorting out why they were both there.
17:27Dual engine failure is incredibly rare.
17:30When it does happen, investigators know there's one thing they need to check immediately.
17:35OK, let's see if we can rule out the obvious.
17:39Was there water in the fuel?
17:42Because, of course, the fuel is the one thing that is common to both engines.
17:48If there was water contaminating the fuel, it should be easy to detect.
17:53Water is heavier than jet fuel and will sink to form a visible layer.
17:58So, no water at all.
18:01OK, so we can strike out the fuel.
18:04On flight 92, however, fuel was not the problem.
18:08There's no sign of fuel contamination and the tanks weren't empty.
18:12Flight level 350, midland 92.
18:16There's another possibility.
18:19Birds are a huge hazard for aviation.
18:22When they get ingested by jet engines, they can do enormous damage.
18:27If the engines of flight 92 were disabled by birds,
18:31traces of blood and tissue will glow under ultraviolet light.
18:36At this point, we had no proof at all.
18:39Lights up.
18:41There was nothing that really would demonstrate that a bird strike was the cause
18:47of this particular group of distorted birds.
18:52Flight 92 crashed less than a mile from the town of Kegworth.
18:57Many witnesses saw the plane coming down with an engine on fire.
19:02But some add a second intriguing detail about the crash.
19:06Well, it went past like a cement mixer.
19:08It was awful.
19:09It was a noise that one doesn't associate with an aeroplane
19:12unless it's in mid-air.
19:14It was awful.
19:16It went past like a cement mixer.
19:18It was awful.
19:19It was a noise that one doesn't associate with an aeroplane
19:22unless it's in real trouble.
19:24The witnesses heard a lot of odd noises coming from this aircraft.
19:28Some of them described it as being like a grinding metallic noise.
19:33Some witnesses saw aircraft debris fall onto farmland
19:36more than two miles from the crash site.
19:40Police provided a search team to do a fingertip search
19:45around there and they came back with a lot of fragments.
19:50These are likely the first pieces to have fallen from the plane,
19:54making them critical clues to the origins of the disaster.
20:00Pollard needs to figure out why these pieces broke off.
20:03Better get to it.
20:05The answer will tell him what caused the engine trouble
20:08that triggered the diversion to East Midlands.
20:11While Pollard works on the engines,
20:14the rest of the team turns to the best lead they have,
20:17the plane's voice and flight data recorders.
20:20Brilliant. Thank you.
20:22Let's hope this gives us what we need.
20:24I think it took several days to actually download and make sure
20:28that what we got was the correct data
20:31and we were interpreting it correctly.
20:34The flight data recorder captures more than 60 parameters,
20:38including engine performance.
20:40So the right engine stops here
20:43and the left gives out more than 15 minutes later here.
20:48Whatever the two problems were, they didn't happen at the same time.
20:52Let's hear it.
21:02That's an engine vibration. It can't be anything else.
21:06Investigators hope the cockpit voice recorder
21:09will provide more insight into what went wrong.
21:12Let's see what you do about that.
21:15The cockpit voice recorder is listening to what's going on in the cockpit
21:19and what the crew are saying to each other
21:21and the sounds associated with the flight.
21:23And, of course, in this case, what the two crews said to each other
21:27was what's absolutely crucial.
21:29Whoa.
21:31That's a bit of a surprise.
21:34What is it, the engines?
21:36We could hear the banging of this and the shaking
21:39and it's obvious that the crew were pretty rattled by this as well.
21:44Which one is it?
21:48It's the left.
21:50Huh? It's the right one.
21:53Did he say the right one?
21:55It was a little bit of a mystery
21:57that the voice recorder showed them,
22:00the voice recorder showed them apparently opting for the right engine
22:05as being where the problem was.
22:07I can't see anything wrong with the right engine at this point.
22:13We were suspecting that the right engine had been shut down
22:16but it was the left engine that had the problem.
22:19It was vital that we got the crew's version of events.
22:22Well, I'll tell you whatever I can.
22:25It's just as important to me to understand what happened as is for you.
22:29The captain is still recovering from his injuries
22:32so investigators rely on the first officer
22:35to tell them everything he remembers about the crisis.
22:38This is a nearly new aircraft.
22:40What's gone wrong? We don't understand it.
22:42Tell us what happened.
22:44It started with the vibrations in the right engine.
22:50The vibrations were really fierce.
22:53Captain Hunt suggested that we throttle back.
22:57Throttle back.
23:01Do you mind if I just get a glass of water?
23:08Obviously, I did as Captain Hunt suggested.
23:14We throttled back the right engine and the vibrations stopped.
23:20Seems to be running all right now.
23:22The vibration and the noise went away
23:26so it would have indicated to them we've done the right thing.
23:31Investigators are forced to consider an unusual theory.
23:35This could be two unrelated engine failures.
23:39Fire on the left side
23:41and an entirely different one on the right side.
23:46Chris Pollard scrutinises engine debris
23:49recovered from farmland near Kegworth.
23:51Every fragment is a potential clue
23:54about what happened to British Midland Flight 92.
23:58Some bits were extremely small.
24:00It is actually a tribute to the quality of the search
24:04that we got as much as we did.
24:09One fragment stands out.
24:11Gotcha!
24:13It shows clear signs of metal fatigue.
24:16Because of where it was found,
24:18Pollard believes it was almost certainly
24:20the first thing to break on the 737.
24:24If we assume that the fatigue failure was the first failure,
24:27that would have lost about four inches
24:30off the end of one of the blades.
24:32The finding could explain how the engine failure began.
24:36Even one broken fan blade
24:38can disturb the flow of air through an engine,
24:41causing it to surge,
24:43a process similar to a car backfiring.
24:47What is it, the engines?
24:49The engine tries to find a new balance
24:51and to do that it rattles around.
24:55It'll be all right, man.
24:57It would have been a lot of physical vibration.
24:59The passengers reported that it was like the sound of,
25:03in a tumble dryer, of rocks and stuff being thrown around.
25:06It would have really been quite violent.
25:09No two fan blades are ever exactly the same.
25:12Pollard hopes a metallurgical examination
25:15will tell him which engine the weakened blade came from.
25:20Although the blades are all nominally of exactly the same alloy,
25:25there were, if you started to look
25:27in the sort of parts per million analysis of these things,
25:31there were slight differences between each blade.
25:34Pollard soon has an answer.
25:37Blade 17, left engine.
25:42The blade that broke first and caused the vibration
25:45came from the left engine.
25:47Investigators now face a troubling question.
25:50Why did the pilots shut down the right engine
25:53if the vibrations were in the left?
25:56A crew this experienced?
25:58It's hard to believe they would shut down the wrong engine.
26:02Pilots have an array of instruments
26:04that tell them about the operation of their engines,
26:07including one that measures vibration.
26:10I think there was a lot of scepticism
26:12from the operations inspectors, the pilots on the team,
26:15because here we have a very experienced, well-qualified crew,
26:20a captain in particular.
26:22Which one is it?
26:24It's the left.
26:27No.
26:28It's the right one.
26:30And it's very, very difficult to accept
26:33that such a basic mistake could be made.
26:38OK, so let's see if the left and right got swapped somehow.
26:43Investigators wonder if a faulty engine gauge
26:46gave the pilots the wrong information
26:49about which engine was breaking down.
26:53It had happened in the past
26:55once that the engine instruments had been cross-connected,
26:59so the left instrument was telling you
27:02what the right engine was doing and vice versa.
27:07OK, so it looks idiot-proof to me.
27:10There's no way the left and right got switched.
27:12The connectors that connect onto the back of the instruments
27:16were effectively what's known as clocked,
27:18which means that you can't fit left to right, right to left.
27:22The tests are conclusive.
27:24The engine gauges work perfectly
27:26and it's not possible to connect them to the wrong engine.
27:33There's another possibility.
27:35The vibration may have been so severe
27:37that it became impossible to read the shuddering gauges.
27:42This could be something.
27:46An American 737 captain
27:49had had one of these onset of serious vibration.
27:54And he said,
27:56the whole instrument panel just vanished into a blur.
27:59He couldn't see a thing.
28:01It was a huge concern
28:04because their engines are shut down around the world,
28:07I'm sure, many times a day.
28:09Very, very seldom is it the incorrect engine.
28:12So it was a stand-out moment, really.
28:19Captain Hunt is finally well enough to talk to investigators.
28:23There is no doubt in my mind the problem was with the right engine.
28:28He insists there was a problem in the right engine.
28:32And he has proof.
28:34The air conditioning system on jetliners is fed by air from the engines.
28:40And after more than 13,000 hours flying jetliners,
28:44Captain Hunt has learned the complex relationship
28:47between his engines and the systems they feed.
28:50Shut it down.
28:54On the previous plane he flew,
28:56the right engine provided nearly all the air in the cockpit.
29:00When I smelled the smoke, I knew the problem was with the right engine.
29:04As they were smelling it in the cockpit,
29:07they thought that this must be an indication that it was the right engine
29:11that was having a fairly major mechanical problem.
29:15On the 400, the air con draws from both engines.
29:20It's a tragic assumption.
29:22Investigators learn that on this newer version of the 737,
29:26both engines supply air to the cockpit.
29:30We're not consciously aware of how we make the decisions.
29:32So if we get slightly the wrong mental picture,
29:35or situation awareness as we call it,
29:37we will make a decision based on that slightly incorrect awareness,
29:41which might give us the wrong outcome.
29:45The captain has another good reason to believe it was the right engine.
29:49The first officer tells him so.
29:51It's the left.
29:53Huh?
29:54It's the right one.
29:56Throttle it back.
30:01I just stumbled over my words, that's all.
30:04I don't think we'll ever know why he changed his mind mid-diagnosis.
30:09We're talking to people who've just been through the most traumatic thing,
30:14you know, and asking them to explain their thought processes.
30:20Right, here are our gauges.
30:22The layout of the cockpit instruments may provide a partial explanation.
30:26Right engine.
30:28Right.
30:30Oh.
30:32See, I can see how you'd mess this up.
30:35The gauges that measure vibration sit on the right side of the panel.
30:40Under stress, the first officer may have thought
30:43they correspond to the right engine.
30:47The problem is definitely in the right engine.
30:54But the theory doesn't stand up.
30:56If the crew shut down the good right engine,
30:59why did the vibration suddenly stop in the faulty left engine?
31:04They reduce the power on the right engine,
31:07but somehow the left engine settles down.
31:11An important piece is missing from this puzzle.
31:17Investigators analyse everything the pilots did during Flight 92.
31:23When the crisis hits, they reduce power to the right engine.
31:27Seems to be running all right now.
31:30The engine problems seem to stop.
31:33I'm in no doubt that that was by far the most dominant cue for them,
31:37that they had done the right thing, and the problem lay in the right engine.
31:42The data shows the first officer made a crucial adjustment
31:46just seconds before the vibration stopped.
31:49That's it, of course.
31:52He had to disconnect the autothrottle.
31:59You throttle it back.
32:01To reduce power on the right-hand side,
32:04the pilot must first switch off the autothrottle.
32:07Autothrottle off.
32:09The part of the autopilot that regulates engine power.
32:12Switching to manual has an unforeseen side effect.
32:15It reduces power to the left engine,
32:18leading to a temporary but dramatic improvement in performance.
32:24It was damaged, but it was reasonably happy operating at a low power setting,
32:28which is all it needed,
32:30because they were constantly descending towards the airfield.
32:33It was probably the killer blow,
32:35because what that meant was that they felt that what they had done,
32:39which was to close the right-hand engine down,
32:42was the correct thing to have done.
32:46All right.
32:48Everything from after the smoke and vibrations stop, please.
32:52The sounds on Flight 92's voice recorder
32:54reveal the pilots had another challenge.
32:57Let's see what we've got here.
33:00Vibrations, smoke...
33:03As they start to assess the escalating crisis,
33:06they're interrupted by a radio call.
33:08Midland 92, you're cleared for descent to flight level 40.
33:13Descending to flight level 40, Midland 92.
33:16You're almost willing them to say,
33:18no, forget talking to air traffic control,
33:20keep analysing the problem, you'll get there.
33:23The hairs on the back of my neck still stand then,
33:26because I just wish the next time I listened to it, it'd be different.
33:30Flight 92 came tragically close to landing.
33:33With its right engine shut down,
33:35the plane flew for nearly 17 minutes on just the damaged left engine.
33:39Power, please.
33:41What triggered the final deadly failure
33:44and made the engine explode in flames?
33:51Inside the left engine,
33:53Pollard has found deep scratches cut into the soft acoustic lining
33:57that muffles engine noise.
33:59The marks suggest a theory about the failure.
34:04Quite clearly, there was relatively little damage done
34:08at the first failure.
34:10We thought one of the blades, if it flew forwards,
34:13it could embed itself in the soft material,
34:16which is the acoustic lining of the intake.
34:20Pollard suspects that when the first blade snapped,
34:23the broken tip became embedded in the acoustic lining.
34:28Power, please.
34:30When the crew increased power,
34:32the extra vibration shook the fragment loose into the engine,
34:36setting off a cascade of destruction.
34:38We're losing another engine!
34:40It knocked a bit off another blade.
34:43Now we had two bits going round the engine.
34:46And it built up to a sort of calamitous failure
34:50of lots and lots of blades.
34:54There was another opportunity for the crew to identify their mistake.
34:58Passengers who sensed the error.
35:01I knew something was wrong when I heard that announcement.
35:04Ladies and gentlemen, we've had a problem with our right engine.
35:07We've shut it down and we'll be diverting to East Midlands Airport.
35:12I partly wanted to say,
35:14excuse me, there's a problem with the left-hand side.
35:17Can you not see that when you're saying it's the right-hand side?
35:20But a little bit, we were just going, don't interfere.
35:23They know what they're doing.
35:27The crew tries to restart the engine they mistakenly shut down,
35:31but they're too close to the ground.
35:34At the time that the engine failed for good,
35:37there was insufficient time to get the other engine started
35:41because start-up of a fan engine takes an appreciable time.
35:48With no engine power, the crash is inevitable.
36:00In their final report,
36:02investigators call for improved vibration gauges
36:05that are easier for pilots to read.
36:08They also highlight the importance of good communication
36:12between the cockpit and the cabin.
36:17I think for the travelling public,
36:19if you see something odd on the wings or whatever,
36:23when you're sitting as a passenger, mention it to somebody
36:26and that message will now get through to the pilot.
36:33The cause of one of Britain's worst air disasters is now clear.
36:38But investigators think this crash
36:40still has more to teach them about saving lives.
36:44This was right on the edge of what was a survivable accident
36:48and that was what made it so important
36:51that we dig into the issues in this
36:54to see how that figure could be improved.
36:5779 people survived the crash of British Midland Flight 92,
37:02but many of the survivors were badly hurt.
37:06Rob Carter intends to find out why.
37:10In the old days of aviation, there was an expectation
37:14that if somebody survived an accident, it was just plain luck.
37:18Starting in the 60s and 70s, the idea grows in
37:23that actually a lot of these people's lives can be saved
37:27and that's affected a lot of design within an aircraft.
37:30When pilots lose control at high altitude, it's nearly always fatal.
37:35But Flight 92 was in a controlled descent until the final seconds.
37:40It should not have been so deadly.
37:42The thought was, if there's any part of the aircraft that survives,
37:46actually most of the occupants should have a decent chance as well.
37:52Medical records provide details on the injuries of every passenger.
37:57It was a very emotional time.
38:00This is a very human business. We wouldn't be in it otherwise.
38:06Carter matches the fate of every passenger
38:09to the location of their seat on the plane.
38:12In the front section of the aircraft, it was the worst,
38:15and then followed by the area just behind the wing.
38:18The better areas were in the tail section.
38:22Carter wonders why some locations were so much more dangerous than others.
38:27The broken seats from the cabin provide an intriguing lead.
38:31There were a number of engineering features in these seats
38:34which we hadn't really seen before and which were pretty important.
38:38Some of the worst injuries came from passengers being struck by loose seats.
38:43The finding raises a question.
38:45Aircraft seats are designed to absorb the powerful G-forces of a plane crash
38:50to help protect passengers.
38:52So why didn't they?
38:57Test data from the US Federal Aviation Administration
39:00confirms that the seats can handle up to 16 Gs,
39:04more than enough to stand up to the crash near Kegworth.
39:07If anything, the seats are designed to absorb the G-forces
39:11of a plane crash near Kegworth.
39:13If anything, the seats are better than they should be.
39:16Something clearly went wrong.
39:22Rob Carter scrutinises the crumpled seats from Flight 92,
39:26searching for clues about why they came free.
39:30It's a crucial step for keeping passengers safer in future crashes.
39:35A computer simulation helps him understand
39:38exactly how impact forces affected the cabin.
39:41No wonder the seats came loose.
39:46The simulation shows why some areas were so badly torn apart.
39:51It wasn't the seats that failed.
39:54It was the floor.
39:57The fact that the floor had collapsed made a very, very big problem.
40:01It meant that the seats were almost sandwiched up against each other
40:06and that made it very difficult for the rescuers.
40:13During a crash, the seats are designed to stay securely bolted
40:17through the floor to the strong metal frame of the airplane.
40:20There is no particular point in having seats
40:23which are much stronger than the floors they're sitting on.
40:29Even in areas where the floor stayed intact,
40:32many passengers were badly hurt
40:34when they struck their head on the seat in front of them.
40:38Brace! Brace!
40:40The passengers on Flight 92 were warned by the captain to brace.
40:44It should have provided some protection from injuries like these.
40:48Before this accident, it seemed to me that a lot of airlines
40:52would have a lot of different recommendations for brace positions,
40:55and I don't think they were particularly scientifically founded.
41:00Carter analyses the brace position recommended by airlines in the UK.
41:06We were able to work out just what happened to people's bodies in the impact.
41:14And we were able to tie that up with what the medical people
41:18were able to tell us about the injuries they'd suffered,
41:22both the people who'd survived and the people who'd died.
41:27The results are dramatic,
41:29revealing serious problems with the recommended brace position.
41:34Very often, with head injuries and neck injuries particularly,
41:38it would be either from people's heads lolling around,
41:42being uncontrolled in an impact,
41:44because our neck muscles are not strong enough to stop that,
41:48and also from canoning into the seat back in front.
41:53The findings contribute to important improvements.
41:57Experts now recommend that passengers bend forward as far as possible,
42:01with their head down and their arms either wrapped around their legs
42:05or braced on the seat in front of them.
42:08It all happened so quickly, none of us can control it consciously.
42:12It's a matter of trying to put ourselves in a position
42:15where the effects of the impact are going to be as small as possible.
42:20Since the crash of Flight 92, aircraft design has also evolved.
42:25Floors are now much stronger.
42:28Overhead bins have sturdier mounts and are much less likely to collapse.
42:33What was very heartening was that the attitude from the regulators
42:38and particularly from the aircraft manufacturers
42:41was that it really mattered that the overhead bins had come down,
42:45that that was something that was simply not tolerable,
42:48and the manufacturer took huge efforts
42:52to make sure that that sort of thing would not happen again.
42:57After the investigation, the airline dismisses both pilots.
43:02I hold no malice towards them whatsoever.
43:05There's always going to be victims of other people's mistakes,
43:09and I think the best thing we can do is learn from those mistakes.
43:14It's very satisfying that this accident has led to real changes
43:18and real improvements in crashworthiness.
43:21It is desperately sad that it came at the cost of many people dying,
43:26of many people being injured,
43:28of many people's lives being forever altered.
43:31That's tragic.
43:33I'm just glad that something did come out of it.
43:37The learning points from this incident have been game-changing
43:42for the aviation industry,
43:44and now flying fortunately is extremely safe.
43:48The dangerous part is getting to the airport.
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