Original subtitles

- Tonight on "History's Most Shocking,"

an airborne emergency caught on camera.

- [Tony] Was it an accident or an acting job?

- If I was in a life or death situation,

I would not be using a selfie stick.

- [Tony] Buying this house was a big mis-snake.

- Reticulated pythons have something called

indeterminate growth.

- [Tony] Think your commute is tough?

Try getting to work like this.

- This really looks like a Hollywood stunt

that's gone horribly wrong.

- [Tony] And before you ride a bike into a train tunnel,

please, watch this first.

- The first rule of train tunnels

is to not go into train tunnels.

[train horn blaring]

[dramatic music]

- [Tony] Disasters.

[explosion booming] - Oh, the humanity.

- [Tony] Shocking video,

life or death decisions,

behind history's caught on camera moments.

- What to do with one dead whale.

- [Tony] Are the mysteries of how and why they happen.

- Some sort of metal fatigue was most likely at fault.

- It's like a bulldozer.

Very few buildings can actually withstand

that force of moving water.

- I'm Tony Harris.

[mountain lion roaring]

[engine revving]

Prepare to be shocked.

[dramatic music]

Good evening and welcome to "History's Most Shocking."

Imagine you are in a plane and the engine fails.

You might see your whole life flash in front of your eyes,

or you might see an opportunity.

What do I mean? Check this out.

[tense music]

It's November 24th, 2021, in Lompoc, California.

Amateur pilot Trevor Jacob

takes off in his 1940 Taylorcraft airplane

for the 220 mile flight to Mammoth Lakes

to spread the ashes of a deceased friend

who died in a base jumping accident.

I just put as many cameras as I could on the plane

for that specific flight.

I just wanted to make sure that every angle was covered.

- [Tony] But then, while cruising at around 8,000 feet,

the plane's engine suddenly fails.

- [Tony] Trevor makes the decision

to abandon the powerless plane.

- That specific plane actually doesn't have a starter,

so you would have to physically be outside of the aircraft

to prop start the plane.

So I just decided to jump out.

- [Tony] Trevor films his free fall,

as the unpiloted plane

films its own crash into the mountains.

[debris crashing]

Meanwhile, he steers his parachute towards the wreckage,

landing in scrub brush.

[brush rustling] - (bleep), (bleep).

Oh, get me out of this.

Ow.

Oh my gosh.

- [Tony] Trevor retrieves his cameras from the plane,

but with the no cell service,

he's forced to hike for 10 hours to find help.

- [Trevor] It felt like a hundred degrees.

I'm crawling through poison oak, getting all cut up.

Ow.

- [Tony] Well after nightfall,

Trevor is finally rescued by local farmers.

- [Trevor] Hello.

- Oh my gosh.

That was the gnarliest day of my life.

I was completely drained.

I was just like, literally just so happy to be alive.

- [Tony] Trevor's fateful plane ride

racked up more than 4 million hits online,

but soon, astute viewers

started seeing strange inconsistencies,

and began to question whether

or not this was a true emergency.

Did the popular YouTuber survive a real crash?

Or was it all a stunt?

Let's see how our experts navigate this one.

[tense music]

On the one hand, small plane crashes aren't that uncommon,

and data from 2019

showed the rate of private plane accidents

was 25 times higher than the rate for commercial planes.

This is largely due to differing levels of experience,

less regulatory oversight,

and fewer requirements for general aviation.

But despite the evident dangers,

many viewers of this video began to suspect a trick.

- One of the things a lot of people pointed out right away

is that as soon as the engine stops,

he doesn't hesitate, he just jumps.

But small planes like this are great for gliding,

and pilots are trained to glide

until they're able to find a safe place

to put the plane down.

- Normal procedure for a pilot

that is experienced in engine failure

would be to pitch the nose of the aircraft down

to increase the speed of the aircraft

to reach glide speed.

You're maintaining stable flight,

start looking for places to land.

We don't see any of those in this video.

In fact, he appears to be pulling back on the yoke

and slowing the aircraft down.

- [Tony] And there are other clues in the video

that don't add up, like his open door.

- One of the items on your checklist

before you take off is, secure the door.

This guy's flying around with his door already cracked, why?

Big red flag.

- [Tony] Jeff Wise also notes

that despite his life being in danger,

Trevor appears to have a bigger priority on his mind.

- When you find yourself in a life or death situation,

you have an effect that's called cognitive tunneling,

which means that you aren't able

to think about all the different things that are going on,

and yet he's carrying a selfie stick,

which is the most unnecessary thing you could have

in a life or death situation.

- [Tony] Another thing might make you go, "Hmm."

Trevor's parachute.

- It's not totally uncommon for pilots,

particularly in these small personal aircraft

to have parachutes on board.

Oftentimes these are emergency chutes,

handy where the pilot can get to 'em.

What this guy's wearing is a very different contraption.

It's a sport chute.

It's worn by people who go up into a plane

with the specific purpose of jumping out.

- [Tony] The evidence doesn't add up for authorities either,

especially since Trevor had the plane wreckage removed

and scrapped before they could investigate.

Facing criminal prosecution,

Trevor pleaded guilty to one count of destruction

and concealment,

with the intent to obstruct a federal investigation.

- I'm not proud of what I did

and I knew in my heart that that wasn't a good thing to do

and I shouldn't have done that.

I'm grateful that nobody got hurt.

Oh my gosh.

- The takeaway? Straight up clickbait.

Trevor intentionally abandoned his plane

just to film the crash.

Despite Trevor's contrition,

he was sentenced to six months in federal prison.

Oh, and remember his buddy's ashes?

Well, exploiting human remains

for a publicity stunt isn't a crime, but maybe it should be.

Moving on.

When most of us call the exterminator,

it's to control common household pests like roaches or mice.

Those are certainly stressful,

but imagine if your home was infested by something bigger,

longer, and much more dangerous.

A warning, some of what you're about to see

may be disturbing.

[tense music]

February 12th, 2023, Pahang state, Malaysia.

A family reports hearing strange creaking sounds

coming from the attic of their home.

They call in some professionals

who start probing the ceiling with poles.

Coming out of a hole in the ceiling

is a long tail, curling and twitching.

This can't be good.

After a few more prods, there's a cracking sound

and then...

[ceiling cracking] [people exclaiming]

The whole ceiling comes crashing down,

exposing two huge, intertwined pythons,

measuring more than a combined 30 feet in length.

In case you need more nightmare fuel, let's see that again.

[ceiling cracking] [people exclaiming]

And they aren't only creepy and crawly.

These animals are some of the deadliest predators on Earth.

- These snakes are reticulated pythons,

and wild, reticulated pythons

are said to be pretty aggressive,

and they are constrictors,

which means they kill by suffocating their prey,

and they're actually a pretty big problem in Malaysia

and Indonesia.

Some people have even found them in their toilet bowls.

- Reticulated pythons

have something called indeterminate growth,

which really means that there's no set point

to how big they can get.

These two pythons weighed together 110 pounds.

It's really like having a small woman

up there in your ceiling.

- [Tony] These pythons are known to eat anything

they can unhinge their jaws around,

including crocodiles like this unlucky specimen,

and even, occasionally, humans.

In fact, in March of 2017,

not far from where this video was taken,

an Indonesian farmer went missing for several days.

And when the locals discovered a 23 foot long python

with a distended stomach,

they sliced it open,

revealing the unfortunate man's remains.

- There have even been reported cases

of these reticulated pythons eating the children

of hunter-gatherers who lived in the jungle.

- Think this won't happen to you because you're in the States?

Think again.

Because of the exotic pet trade in Florida,

non-native Burmese pythons have become one of the state's

most concerning invasive species.

But this video raises questions.

Why were these huge snakes in the attic?

And is this the right way

to handle that horrifying situation

if it happens in your house?

[tense music]

[ceiling cracking] [people exclaiming]

- Snakes are capable of sniffing out mice

or any sort of food that's in the house.

So it's very appealing to a snake

to find a place within your home

that offers them either the heat that they need

or the coolness that they need,

while also getting some free food.

- [Tony] Snakes of all types from around the world,

including here in the US, rely on stable climates

to regulate their cold-blooded temperatures.

Since warm air rises in a home with good ventilation,

this makes your attic the perfect destination.

There's also a higher probability

of encountering some vermin to snack on.

Think about that the next time

you hear a strange sound up in the ceiling.

Dr. Mayor also suspects an additional detail

about these snakes

that may have prompted them to seek shelter.

- The funny part about the snakes coming down

is that they were actually mating,

so they interrupted what could have possibly become

quite a lot more snakes in that ceiling.

- [Tony] So did this family make it out alive?

Well, it took an hour, but the animal control team

finally got the snakes out of the house.

But what can you do if you find a snake in your home?

- They definitely did the right thing

by calling professionals.

These snakes are so large and strong,

even when professionals are handling them,

they recommend one person per meter of the snake

because they're so able to rapidly coil around you.

So for a regular person to get these snakes down,

it would've been life threatening.

- The best thing is to identify the snake so that

you know what appropriate actions you can take.

A venomous snake can be very dangerous.

Snake venom works incredibly quickly,

and it's especially true with small pets and small children.

I'm gonna go check my ceiling when I get home today.

- Our takeaway, these were mating snakes

looking for a dark private place.

In this case, the snakes were released in a safe place

in the wild, but here in the US, it's another story.

South Florida's python elimination program,

which began in 2017,

recently captured and euthanized its 8,000th python

in an effort to rebalance the Everglades ecosystem.

- We seem to have a fascination with great white sharks,

and really, can you blame us?

Getting the chance to see one of these amazing creatures

up close and personal is a rare opportunity,

but for the cage diving tourist in our next video,

this great white encounter was very close

to being his last.

[tense music]

October 2016, a group of amateur divers

is on a five day shark cruise

off the coast of Guadalupe Island, Mexico.

The divers are taking turns submerging

into the water using specialized protective cages,

while the ship's crew members bait the water with tuna.

Everything seems to be going according to plan,

when suddenly, a great white shark gobbles up

one of the tied tuna shanks

and starts thrashing about violently.

The frenzied beast then smashes his way

inside one of the diving cages.

Take a closer look.

We see a shark fin struggling between the bars.

- [Recorder] Oh my God.

- [Tony] And what appears to be blood coming to the surface.

Then the shark explodes upwards in a crimson mist,

flailing about until it finally escapes.

- [Tony] Actually, that's wrong.

There is someone in the cage,

and that crimson plume of blood is not a good sign.

How could one man survive being caged up

with one of the ocean's deadliest predators?

- [George] They've got a bite force

of up to 4,000 pounds per square inch.

- [Tony] For comparison,

the bite force of the average human

is only 162 pounds per square inch.

- Their jaws are lined with five

or six rows of continuously regrowing teeth.

These things are built to kill.

- [Tony] And if you think the frightening encounter

in this video was a fluke,

Kourounis warns that this has already happened again

right in the same location.

- Just three years after this video was taken,

another great white ended up decapitating itself

after getting snarled up in one of these cages.

Because of encounters like this,

the Mexican authorities have really cracked down

and tried to protect these sharks.

- The idea for shark cage diving goes back to the 1950s,

although it really didn't catch on until the mid 1970s

after the release of the film "Jaws."

But the questions are, why does this happen?

Is the shark attacking the cage to get at the diver?

Or is there another explanation?

[tense music]

Critics of these tourist shark dives

frequently point to the excessive amount of bloody chum

used to attract these fearsome creatures.

- Sharks are extremely large predators

and they can sense blood from hundreds of yards away,

and we're overtaking its senses by also chumming the water,

so it's in sensory overload.

This is why we have a feeding frenzy

or what we perceive as very aggressive behavior in sharks.

- [Tony] In fact, thanks to their nostrils being lined

with tons and tons of sensory cells

called olfactory epithelium,

scientists believe great whites

can detect a single drop of blood

floating within 10 billion drops of water.

- These shark cages offer a false sense of security.

While they look safe,

a lot of the times, there are large enough openings

for a shark to get in,

but then not to really be able to turn around and get out.

I would rather be in the water with the shark,

because at that point, at least I have eyes

on the animal and I have space,

and more importantly, the shark has space.

- [Tony] Amazingly, in this video,

you can see the crew pulls up the diver

who had been in the cage with the shark the entire time,

and miraculously, he is unharmed.

That blood was from wounds the shark received

while smashing through the steel cage.

Still, Mayor believes people shouldn't be deterred

from swimming with great white sharks.

They just need to do it correctly.

- If you do find yourself in a situation like this,

the best thing to do

is to try to duck down as low as possible

and as far away from the shark as you possibly can,

because the shark's natural instinct,

and you see it in this video, is to immediately swim up

and try to get out of the cage.

All it wants to do is escape, not attack.

- Our takeaway, this is natural shark behavior.

We agree with our experts

that using chum to attract sharks

is only going to lead to more situations

like what we see here.

But because of videos like this,

governments are taking action.

As of early 2023,

all great white cage diving in Isla Guadalupe

has been banned until further notice.

Now let's move from the ocean back to terra firma,

or in this case, terror firma.

Easy question, a freight train versus a bicycle.

Who's gonna win?

Hard question.

What would you do if you were on the bike?

[tense music]

May 12th, 2018, Barra Mansa, Brazil.

Two cyclists are out for a ride.

They brought along a small camera,

but they forgot to pack their common sense.

- They're trying to avoid the main highway,

and their choices to do that are either swim down

through a river, climb some rocks,

or go through a train tunnel,

and I think you can see where this is headed.

- [Tony] The tunnel is dark and quiet as they enter,

but not for long.

20 seconds in, right here, is the uh-oh moment,

as they first see the lights

and hear the dreadful sound of an oncoming train.

- [Tony] Frantic, the cyclist filming

throws down his bike and makes a run for the entrance.

Has this hapless pair made their last wrong turn?

Or is there light at the end of the tunnel?

Stay with us.

[train horn blaring]

- [Tony] A pair of cyclists has ventured into a train tunnel.

- [Tony] Much to their regret.

[train horn blaring]

But despite this remarkable combination

of bad judgment and bad luck...

[train horn blaring] [intense music]

The two make it out,

with a ferocious locomotive hot on their tail.

- I went frame by frame,

and it was 60 frames

between the time that he left the tunnel

and the time the train left the tunnel.

That equates to two seconds,

only two seconds between life and death for this guy.

- [Tony] As soon as the coast is clear,

the cyclist goes back into the tunnel

and safely retrieves his bike.

But not everyone who trespasses on train tracks is so lucky.

- Each year in the US,

there are roughly 400 trespass fatalities on train tracks

and almost as many injuries.

- [Tony] In fact, 94% of rail related fatalities

in the US take place at crossings

or as a result of trespassing, like these guys.

The stats are as scary as the footage,

but just how close did these guys come

to getting themselves killed?

Let's break it down.

[tense music]

Surprisingly, running for it

might have been the most natural response,

but perhaps not the smartest.

- Tunnels are, on the average, about 15 feet wide.

Railroad cars are about 10 feet, 8 inches wide.

So you're gonna have about two feet on each side.

Generally you'll have enough clearance

and space there to survive a passing train.

- [Tony] And look, the video provides a major clue

that proves the point.

- When the guy went back to retrieve it,

the bike was still in good condition, it hadn't been hit.

So if he had just laid down prone,

parallel to the wall of the tunnel,

he would've had probably plenty of room

to have the train safely pass over him.

- [Tony] Quimby asserts that trying

to leave the tunnel was actually the riskier decision.

- Most people don't outrun trains.

Even if they can see you,

they generally can't stop within their sight distance.

- [Tony] A train's speed limit depends on location

and conditions,

but a train going just 55 miles per hour

could take up to a mile and a half

to come to a complete stop,

that's a distance of about 20 football fields.

- If you want to avoid completely getting hurt,

don't go in the tunnel to begin with.

These guys are lucky

that their foolishness didn't cost 'em their lives.

- The takeaway? Never do this.

Obviously.

If you have to cross tracks while biking,

cross at a 90 degree angle and walk,

don't ride across.

That way your wheels won't get stuck.

When you see an 18 wheeler on the highway,

does your heart skip a beat?

Do you speed up to pass it or slow down to avoid it?

For many drivers, sharing the road

with these colossal trucks is downright nerve-racking.

And as one driver found out, the fear is justified.

[tense music]

November 30th, 2021.

It's morning on Highway I-294

in the western outskirts of Chicago.

A dash cam shows an 18 wheeler in the lanes ahead

leaving a trail of smoke behind.

At first, you'd assume this big rig

definitely needs an oil change or a new muffler,

but nobody in their wildest dreams expected to see this.

A car is wedged at a perpendicular angle

underneath the 18 wheeler's trailer.

And if that wasn't wild enough,

suddenly, 19-year-old Laylisha Gardner pokes her head out

of the demolished driver's side window.

- I don't know what's worse about this footage,

thinking that someone was seriously hurt or even killed,

or knowing that there's someone who's awake

and aware enough to wave around looking for help.

- This looks like a Hollywood stunt gone horribly wrong.

- [Tony] Meanwhile, another camera captures the action

from the other side of the truck.

And while this crazy crash may seem unprecedented,

there's actually a name for this kind of accident.

- They're called underrides.

There are federal statistics

that go back as far as the 1960s,

describing the number of these incidents

and how often they occur.

- [Tony] In fact, a famous underride accident

from the 1960s is among one of the earliest reported.

- In 1967, the actress, Jayne Mansfield

was riding behind a truck

and the truck slowed to about 30 miles an hour,

but Mansfield's driver did not slow down in time

and he slipped right underneath the truck.

The top half of the car was absolutely destroyed

and three passengers were killed, including the actress.

- According to the National Highway

Traffic Safety Administration,

underride crashes killed more than 400 people in 2021.

But what accidents like this to happen in the first place?

And what happened here?

We take that question to our experts.

[tense music]

The research shows that

underride accidents fall into two categories.

- The first one we see frequently

where somebody's coming up behind a tractor trailer

not paying attention,

and they stuff their car under the back of a trailer.

- [Tony] The second is what we see here,

when a car goes under the trailer

at a perpendicular angle.

- It's usually at an intersection,

when they're crisscrossing each other,

or the truck making a U-turn.

But in this case, they were traveling parallel

and because they were parallel,

it's hard to figure out how they got there.

- [Tony] According to reports,

Laylisha says she was just changing lanes.

- It's unclear why she didn't see the truck,

but you have to always consider factors like glare

and whether the sun's a contributing factor,

or whether just the fact that she was low

and the truck is white.

- [Tony] But the big question

you may have already been asking,

how come the truck driver didn't notice the car was there?

News reports indicate Laylisha was being dragged long enough

to make multiple phone calls for help.

- Usually, truck drivers have a convex mirror there

that looks down the side.

The mirrors on the side and the increased friction,

I'm not sure why the trucker didn't see her on the side.

- [Tony] Even if the truck driver

had noticed her right away,

it's a nearly impossible situation to navigate.

- If I was that truck driver, what am I gonna do?

I can't pull over necessarily,

'cause that means that I'm gonna go in an angle,

and the trailer could go over the car,

and then if people aren't really paying close attention,

we could have a pile up.

- [Tony] Finally, motorists are able

to get the truck driver's attention and he pulls over.

Miraculously, Laylisha doesn't have

any major physical injuries,

so how did she make it out alive?

Martinez says she can thank the aptly named safety cage,

a rigid frame designed to protect passengers

in the event of a crash. [car thudding]

- That whole front of the car disappeared,

but the safety cage was still pretty much intact.

And that's the only thing you gotta worry about

if you're trying to stay alive, right?

It's where your head is, where your chest is.

- [Tony] But Haight adds, this type

of underriding accident is bound to happen again.

While today, rear guards are mandated on 18 wheelers,

side guards are not.

- The reason for that is anything you put underneath

the bed of the trailer

minimizes how much ground clearance you have.

So going over a bump, going over train tracks,

those sorts of things become tougher.

- The takeaway, this appears to be a freak accident

during a lane change.

Despite an apparently oblivious truck driver,

the accident report assigned no blame

to either party in the mishap,

but it's likely this won't be the last time we see this.

Side guards might save lives,

but they still aren't mandatory in the US.

Mesopotamians invented the first sewer system

using clay pipes.

Today, modern sewer systems are ubiquitous,

but have you ever thought about what's actually down there?

Well, one little boy in China did,

and he got a pretty explosive answer.

Check this out.

[tense music]

It's January 22nd, 2021 in Dazhou, China.

A CCTV camera overlooking a sparsely populated plaza

records a small child appearing to place something

in the crevice of a manhole cover

before quickly running away.

Then suddenly...

[explosion booming]

Take another look.

The covers explode off of at least five manholes arranged

in a diagonal row.

After the explosion, the police investigated

and discovered the object the child dropped

was a lit firecracker.

And it's not the first time

something like this has happened.

- There was actually an incident in Iran

where a man was standing on the street smoking a cigarette,

and he decided to toss it into a hole in the ground

when he was finished,

and that caused the entire street to explode.

He somehow managed to survive.

He crawled away, his shoes were blown clean off,

like that's how powerful the explosion was.

- [Tony] McCarthy says,

these scary situations really make you stop

to think about what's flowing beneath our streets.

- There is a whole world under our feet

that basically transports things like our water

and our waste and stuff that we just kind of

toss down the drains,

and it creates kind of a volatile and mysterious mix.

- [Tony] Among this mix is a funny sounding substance

known as a fatberg.

- Fatbergs are essentially oils

and fat that have been turned into soap,

because they undergo this process called saponification,

where water flowing over concrete interacts with the fats

and it basically just makes a giant ball of soap

in the sewer.

They can clog up the entire sewer system

and cause a lot of damage.

- [Tony] So there's clearly lots of unsavory stuff

piling up under our cities,

and though what happened in China may be child's play,

messing with sewers can be serious business.

[explosion booming]

In 2017, the largest fatberg ever found

was discovered in a sewer in London.

The blockage weighed in at 130 tons,

the equivalent of 11 double decker buses.

But fatbergs aren't known to explode.

So what happened here?

[tense music]

Our experts say there's a reason why dropping lit objects

into the ground can cause huge explosions like this.

[explosion booming]

- Sewers are particularly dangerous

because they're very confined, tight spaces

with not a lot of ventilation.

There's a variety of things

that can be explosive down there,

whether it be methane gas from human feces

or other bio waste, industrial waste, gasoline.

So just the littlest spark can cause an enormous explosion.

- [Tony] Methane is produced by the breakdown

of organic material such as human waste.

The pick holes in manhole covers like these in China

not only help workers open the covers for access,

they can also ventilate any buildup of gas.

Yet here we see one downside to these openings.

They allow entry to things that shouldn't be there.

So in the US,

there's a lot more to curbing methane

than just a few pick holes.

- In the United States,

we have different treatment facilities

throughout our sewer lines that break down

and remove chemicals.

But these exposed sewers like in China

and the one in Iran,

don't have to meet the same standard for treatment.

So the methane is much stronger and it actually compounds.

- [Tony] So on the surface,

these two explosions seem very similar,

but there's a wrinkle with the Iran explosion.

Remember, that one took out a whole city sidewalk.

It appears that about 15 minutes before the blast,

the same CCTV camera captured someone

dumping something into the hole.

- That material could have been

gunpowder soaked in gasoline,

but even gunpowder at its lowest level

when you put a fire to it, will burn before it explodes.

- [Tony] So Anderson doubts whatever it was

caused an explosion.

So, what did?

Another theory is a ruptured,

underground natural gas line.

Could that crack be a sign?

Anderson says, "Not so fast."

- A lot of times that gas ignites and you see a flame.

So you can almost rule out the idea that it's natural gas.

- [Tony] That leaves only one possible explanation.

The same culprit as China, methane gas,

perhaps more concentrated

because of the Iranian sewer's outdated design.

- I really think that the one in Iran

was just a sewage canal.

What we have are raw sewage

flowing through the canals of the street area.

Human methane gas gets captured in this canal,

and when someone introduces some type of, form of heat,

it then explodes,

basically like a pipe bomb going off.

- The takeaway?

Lit objects cause biogas explosions underground.

Fortunately, explosive sewer gas

is typically prevented from entering homes

and other buildings, thanks to plumbing traps

that create a water seal at points of entry.

Vents also allow dangerous gases to be exhausted outside.

The Cold War between the West

and the Soviet Union wasn't just about geopolitics

or the space race, it was also about the future of aviation,

and a new kind of plane that many believed

was going to define the future,

until those plans came crashing down.

[tense music]

June 3rd, 1973, Goussainville, France.

It's the biannual Paris Air Show,

and all eyes are on a revolutionary moment in travel.

Two supersonic passenger planes

that fly more than two times faster

than the average commercial jet,

reaching speeds above 1,500 miles per hour.

The Concorde, built in a partnership between Britain

and France,

and the Soviet's Tupolev Tu-144.

- The Soviet's plane is dubbed by the West

as the Concordski.

It's got the same delta wing airframe

and downward pointed nose.

Spectators present at the event

were dying to see which plane would outperform

or outmaneuver the other in the air.

- [Tony] The Concorde completes its demonstration

ahead of the Concordski and without a hitch.

Now it's the Soviet's turn, but then, disaster strikes.

- [Newscaster] Suddenly, without warning,

the Concordski is in trouble, as it goes into a steep climb

and tight turn,

then suddenly begins to break up and catch fire in the air.

- [Tony] Let's see that again.

A television camera records the plane

as it appears to go into a dive during a turn.

Then suddenly, pieces fall off the plane

and it bursts in the flames

just before it slams into the ground.

- The incident killed six people on board the aircraft

and eight people on the ground,

and effectively doomed the Tu-144

from ever flying outside the Soviet Union.

- Unsurprisingly, the Concorde wins the battle

for commercial supersonic air travel.

In 1976, service begins between Europe and the Americas,

cutting a six to eight hour flight across the Atlantic

in half.

For more than two decades,

the Concorde ruled the supersonic skies

and the Concordski became a footnote.

The Concorde flew without incident until 2000,

when Air France flight 4590

crashed just after takeoff, killing all 109 people on board.

It was found that debris on a runway

contributed to that disaster.

But what doomed the Concorde's Soviet cousin?

Our experts are on the hunt for the pravda,

that means the truth.

[tense music]

When it comes to supersonic flight, it's all about speed,

but the Concordski may have been going a little too fast.

- The Tu-144 was rushed through its development

in an attempt to beat the Concorde to the market.

Plus, the airplane's aerodynamic design

just didn't seem as sleek as the Concorde.

And from what I see on the video,

I'm very suspicious of a overstress of the airframe.

In other words, this airplane was moving too rapidly

and maneuvering too aggressively to allow its wings

and structure to stay intact.

The pilots, likely, may have overstressed the aircraft

using aggressive control movements.

As you can see here,

the airplane begins to descend downward,

and during the descent,

you can see chunks of the wing fall apart.

It's a mid-air, in-flight, structural failure of some sort.

- [Tony] But were those sudden, aggressive maneuvers

premeditated or an emergency response?

One claim is the pilot of the Concordski

was startled by a nearby French fighter jet.

- The theory was, the Russian crew was not informed

that this French mirage jet was in the area,

and that caused a severe evasive maneuver

that overstressed the airplane.

That's a bit of a dubious theory to me.

In the video, you don't see another jet,

you just see the airplane maneuvering

and then coming apart.

- [Tony] But there's another theory

to explain the Concordski's sudden maneuvers

that could be much more plausible.

- This competition between who's gonna be the first

to have the best supersonic commercial jet

is a huge driving factor,

and this occurred at an air show

where you're supposed to show off your aircraft.

I think it certainly cannot be ruled out

just how much that may have played into the pilot's psyche

and his decision to push this aircraft

beyond its limits.

- [Tony] Despite this disaster, in 1977,

the Soviet Tu-144 began passenger service

between Moscow and Alma-Ata Kazakhstan,

but that ended months later when a new Tu-144

crash landed during a test flight.

The reason for that crash was determined to be a fuel leak.

But what really caused the Paris Air Show disaster

remains a mystery.

- There's never been a definitive conclusion,

but probably the theory that fits the best

for what caused this crash

would be a combination of a pilot error

and design of the Concordski itself.

- The takeaway?

McMillan and Guzzetti certainly present a strong case,

but ultimately, the fact is no one can say for certain

what really happened that day in the skies over Paris.

Meanwhile, a supersonic renaissance

may be right over the horizon.

American carriers are investing heavily in the technology,

though that two and a half hour flight from New York

to LA is still years away.

- You'd think perhaps the one time

your car doesn't pose a risk of any accident

is when it's turned off and parked.

After watching this video, you might just wanna buy a bike.

[tense music]

July 24th, 2022, the streets are quiet

on a hot summer day in Fuzhou, China.

A man is about to get on his motorbike.

His bike is next to a parked car with no driver inside

when CCTV footage captures this.

[explosion booming] [glass shattering]

Let's see that again.

[tape rewinding]

A great burst of noise

is followed by what appears to be gas

filling a parked silver car,

then a sudden explosion sends shards of glass

and bent metal airborne.

[explosion booming]

Moments later, firemen are called to the scene

to put out the flames,

and luckily, the motorcyclist gets away unscathed.

- This guy almost gets his head taken off

when he least expected it.

Something flares in the car, he turns to look at it.

So you know there was a noise that alerted him to it,

but there was nothing he could do.

- [Tony] Pappalardo says there's no shortage

in history of cars just blowing up.

In fact, the Ford Pinto became infamous in the 1970s

for bursting into flames.

Most of those explosions were caused by rear end collisions

that ruptured the Pinto's gas tank,

and caused vapors to spread through the car.

- Usually car accidents are associated with speeding,

hitting things, being hit by them.

The idea that a stationary car poses a threat,

it's kind of alien and weird to us,

but inside that vehicle, there's stored energy.

Even a parked car can be a dangerous car.

- [Tony] So Pappalardo floats another theory.

Could this have something to do

with the batteries found in electric cars?

- The batteries inside electric vehicles

can be prone to be set on fire in an accident

or even sitting stationary.

In the same way,

gas tanks have been associated with those things as well.

- After Hurricane Ian hit Florida in the fall of 2022,

a number of electric cars caught fire

when their batteries became waterlogged

and began to corrode.

But why did this car in China explode?

Our experts go under the hood of this mechanical mystery.

[tense music]

We see what looks like a cloud of gas

in the car before the explosion.

So could the lithium ion batteries

found in electric cars be to blame?

- Lithium ion batteries carry their own oxygen.

If they overheat,

they may do something called thermal runaway.

Before that happens, they put out some gas,

that gas is explosive.

- [Tony] Martinez says the batteries overheat,

particularly if they're used or charged incorrectly

because of what's known as thermal runaway.

That happens when a battery cell generates heat

much faster than it can dissipate.

And that day was particularly hot in Fuzhou.

But there's a clue that this may not be

an electric car at all.

There're spraying the way you would

with a gasoline fire, with water.

An electric fire would take a lot more water,

a lot more effort to put out.

- [Tony] We did some digging

and confirmed it was a gasoline car

made by the Chinese automaker, DongFeng.

But the mystery remains, why did it just blow up?

- I wonder if that initial puff of white smoke

wasn't something like a small portable lithium ion battery

like in a drone.

And after they've been flying a while,

those batteries get pretty hot.

There's a chance for them to start a fire.

It also could be,

somebody was carrying a gas can around with them

and it allowed the vapors to build up inside the car,

but that's a really tough one to sort out.

- The takeaway?

We can't say for sure what caused this blast,

but since the smoke started

from inside the passenger compartment,

it's likely it was set off by a portable gas can

or a lithium ion battery, not from the car itself,

but from something left inside, like a cell phone.

And that's our show for tonight.

Thank you so much for watching and stay safe out there.