Original subtitles

narrator: high above the indian ocean disaster strikes.

boy: the engine's on fire.

narrator: more than six miles in the air

all four engines of a british airways 747

stop working.

pilot: roger, declare emergency.

co-pilot: mayday, mayday, mayday.

speedbird 9.

narrator: with no engines and little power,

british airways flight 9 falls towards the ocean.

the crew fights to keep their plane

from crashing into the sea.

what has crippled their massive jet,

threatening the lives of everyone on board?

flight attendant: ladies and gentlemen, we are starting our approach.

pilot: we lost both engines!

flight attendant: put the mask over your nose.

emergency descent.

pilot: mayday, mayday.

flight attendant: brace for impact!

controller: i think i lost one.

man: investigation starting...

man: he's gonna crash!

narrator: june 24, 1982.

british airways flight 9 cruises through the sky over indonesia.

in a few hours, the plane and all 263 people on board

are scheduled to land in perth, australia.

phyllis welch and her daughter are seated in cabin e

at the very back of the enormous jet.

phyllis welch: how's that heroine of yours,

fanny price, faring?

betty tootell ferguson: she's having a tough old time at mansfield park.

it's a good place for me to spend a few hours.

welch: wouldn't mind being there myself.

[chuckles]

tootell ferguson: it's all right, mum. we'll get there.

we had already traversed at least two time zones.

we were very tired.

we had flown through bombay, through kuala lumpur,

hadn't been able to get much sleep, if any,

and it was a dark, dark, pitch black night.

narrator: ahead of betty and phyllis,

charles capewell is returning home to perth, australia,

with his two boys, chas and stephen.

charles capewell: all right, settle down, lads.

come on, time for a nap. get back to your seat.

chas: no.

capewell: what, do you want to sleep here?

all right.

it was a good flight.

it was going well.

leaving london was great, and we was all eager to go home,

and the two boys were eager to get back to mum.

i thought we'll be home in three hours--perth.

they'll be back and we'll get in a taxi and we'll be home.

narrator: while many of the passengers

have been traveling for almost a day,

the crew is fresh.

they took control at the last stopover

in kuala lumpur.

captain eric moody got his first taste of flying

at the age of 16 when he took a gliding lesson.

he was one of the first ever trained on the 747.

eric moody: roger, check with jakarta.

roger greaves: jakarta control, speedbird 9 over halim

at level 3-7-0.

controller: speedbird 9, roger.

narrator: first officer roger greaves

has been a co-pilot for more than six years.

barrie townley-freeman has been a flight engineer

on these aircraft for just a little longer.

greaves: i'd not flown with eric before, or barrie,

and that was the first time we'd actually,

we'd actually met, on that flight.

narrator: as the jet flies

over the city of jakarta,

it's cruising at more than 36,000 feet

and has been in the air for an hour and a half.

captain moody checks his weather radar.

it shows smooth sailing for the next 300 miles.

moody: all right, roger, it's all clear.

just keep your eyes open.

i'll be back in a moment. just got to use the loo.

narrator: back in the cabin,

many of the passengers have fallen asleep.

while charles capewell and his sons doze,

an ominous haze appears above their heads.

it's still legal to smoke on passenger jets in 1982.

for the cabin crew, though,

the smoke seems thicker than normal.

graham skinner: there seems to be a lot of smoke out there.

narrator: they begin to worry that a small fire

may be smoldering somewhere on the plane.

skinner: maybe someone lit up in the toilet.

let's go see if we can find it.

narrator: a fire at 36,000 feet is a terrifying prospect.

if there is a blaze somewhere,

the crew must find it immediately.

in the cockpit, the flight takes an unsettling turn.

greaves: barrie and i were just sitting there minding the shop,

pitch dark night, of course,

and then we started to get these pinpricks of light

on the, on the windscreen.

barrie townley-freeman: st. elmo's fire?

greaves: i don't think so.

it's not moving the way it should.

narrator: saint elmo's fire is a natural phenomenon

that's sometimes seen when planes fly

through highly charged thunderclouds.

but there aren't supposed to be any thunderclouds tonight.

townley-freeman: anything on the radar?

greaves: no. no, it's clear.

i don't like the look of this.

let's get a better look out there.

narrator: with the help of their landing lights,

the two men are disturbed

to see a thin layer of cloud surrounding their plane

even though nothing is showing up on their radar.

greaves: but at 37,000 feet,

the normal thing you would anticipate

would be high cirrus, which is just a thin layer of cloud.

i think we better get the captain back up here.

[ding]

tootell ferguson: i was reading my book,

and there was a slight flick of turbulence,

just a slight flick, and i glanced over to the left

where i had a clear view of the port wing,

and to my surprise it was covered

in a brilliant white shimmering light,

which seemed to be clinging to the wing of the aircraft.

i carried on reading, but i found that i kept reading

the same paragraph over and over again

and not taking in a word of it.

i just didn't know what was happening.

narrator: in the cabin, the smoke begins to thicken.

stewards have been unable to figure out

where it's coming from.

if there's a fire, they can't find it.

skinner: eh?

all right, well, go see that the passengers are comfortable.

tootell ferguson: do you smell anything odd, mum?

welch: seems rather smoky in here.

tootell ferguson: i noticed that thick smoke was pouring into the cabin

through the vents above the windows,

and that was a very sobering sight.

welch: turkish cigarettes?

moody: it smelt like sort of a sulfuric electrical smell,

and i went on that flight deck

expecting to hear that we had some electrical smoke

somewhere on the aircraft,

but nothing was further from the truth.

when did it start?

greaves: just after you stepped out.

moody: anything on radar?

greaves: no, it's clear, not a cloud.

oh, my lord. look at engine 4!

it's lit up somehow.

captain, captain, have a look at number 1.

moody: it's the same on my side.

narrator: none of the crew have ever seen anything like this before,

but the light show is just the beginning.

their bizarre flight

is about to take a terrifying turn for the worse.

greaves: this light show, if you like,

had become more intense.

in fact we ended up sitting there

with two sheets of brilliant white light in front of us

in place of the windscreens.

narrator: inside the cabin, smoke has been growing thicker.

chief steward graham skinner

has been organizing an intense but quiet search for fire.

capewell: what's with all the smoke?

skinner: there was smoke in the cabin.

it got really, really hot.

you were perspiring,

literally drenched in perspiration,

and the acrid smoke was at the back of your throat,

up your nose, in your eyes, and you're rubbing this

and your eyes are running and it was, oh, it was not,

not a very nice situation at all.

narrator: flight engineer barrie townley-freeman

has been checking his instruments carefully.

he's smelled the smoke, but so far has no indication

that there's a fire in any of the plane's systems.

townley-freeman: can't find anything.

narrator: with one mystery confronting them,

they are suddenly faced with a frightening new situation.

[beeping]

chas: dad!

the engine's on fire!

capewell: the whole of the wing was a sheet of light,

and i thought, well, i said, we better close that,

because we don't know what's happened.

chas, sit down.

[people coughing]

stephen, close that blind.

[coughing]

then i realized that, you know,

something was dramatically wrong.

tootell ferguson: there were huge flames coming out of the back of the engines,

20, some people said 40 feet long.

these huge jets of sheer flame

shooting out of the back of all the engines.

is it going to penetrate from the outside of the aircraft?

is it going to come into the cabin?

are we going to burn to death?

are we going to choke to death on the smoke?

what's going to happen?

what's causing it?

what are they going to do about it?

narrator: as the fire engulfs the engines,

one of them revs loudly and flames out.

townley-freeman: engine failure, number 4.

moody: fire action, number 4.

greaves: checklist power and gear.

moody: set.

greaves: thrust lever.

moody: closed.

greaves: start lever.

moody: off.

once one engine fails,

you call for the drill to shut that one down.

you have drills for certain things so that you don't have,

you don't fly together as a crew forever.

you can fly with different people then,

and you can standardize the operations.

narrator: the instruments do not indicate a fire on the plane,

but the passengers can see flames erupting from the engines

and stretching down the length of the 747.

tootell ferguson: i could not see the engines

from where i was sitting.

i could only see the space behind them,

but there was enough glow in that space to convince me

that the aircraft was really seriously on fire.

capewell: we were in trouble.

they knew, as young as they were,

they knew we were in bad, bad trouble,

and they sort of just looked at me

as if to say, well, what do we do now, dad?

narrator: the 747 is more than six miles above the ocean.

its engines appear to be burning,

and the peculiar smoke continues to fill the cabin.

and then the unthinkable happens.

townley-freeman: number 2 engine's gone.

moody: all right, then. begin the engine shutdown.

townley-freeman: no wait!

[engine whir fading]

they've all gone.

all four engines have failed.

moody: the other three just went out almost immediately,

and that's when it begins to be a serious emergency.

tootell ferguson: those engines made a grating, rumbling sound,

almost like a cement mixer,

and then gradually the noise just disappeared

and they became silent.

greaves: in a minute and half

we've gone from four engines running normally to having none.

narrator: the 747 has plenty of fuel.

yet somehow all four of the jet's engines

have completely stopped working.

moody: roger, declare emergency.

greaves: mayday, mayday, mayday.

speedbird 9, we have lost all four engines out of 3-7-0.

mayday, mayday, mayday.

speedbird 9, we have lost all four engines out...

narrator: with no engine power

and no idea what has crippled their plane,

british airways flight 9 begins falling from the sky.

greaves: jakarta control. speedbird 9.

we have lost all four engines, now out of 3-6-0.

narrator: first officer roger greaves issues a mayday,

but he has trouble getting his message across.

controller: have you got a problem?

greaves: jakarta control. speedbird 9.

we have lost all four engines.

repeat, all four engines.

now descending through flight level 3-5-0.

controller: speedbird 9, you have lost number 4 engine?

greaves: this idiot doesn't understand!

jakarta control.

speedbird 9.

we have lost all four engines.

repeat, all four engines.

now descending through flight level 3-5-0.

greaves: the air traffic control at jakarta

unfortunately seemed to have a slight problem

in understanding what we actually were saying.

narrator: only when another plane nearby relays the mayday call

do controllers in jakarta understand.

greaves: now descending through flight level 3-5-0.

controller: speedbird 9, all four engines out.

understood. standing by.

narrator: as far as the crew knows,

no 747 had ever lost power to all of its engines before.

the crew has to find out why it's happening now.

moody: i think we've cocked something up.

we were concerned and worried that we'd done something wrong,

you know, to cause the whole thing.

greaves: all three of us felt exactly the same,

and it was, it was a personal guilt

in the sense of what have i missed?

what have i done wrong?

you know, because this kind of thing doesn't happen.

narrator: while not built for gliding,

even without its engines

a 747 can travel forward nine miles

for every half mile it drops.

with no power, flight 9 has started a long, slow fall.

some six miles above the ocean,

the crew has less than half an hour

before they smash into the sea.

moody: when they all stop,

you go into automatic mode, obviously.

we had practiced this drill on the simulator

many, many times,

and that's very good and all very well

as long as when it happens to you for real,

what happens on the airplane is mirrored

by what happens to you in the simulator,

and i'm afraid that wasn't so.

narrator: in the simulator,

when all four engines stop, the autopilot turns off.

but high above the indian ocean,

captain moody sees that his autopilot is still on.

moody: we were all three confused and concerned

that what was happening to us

wasn't what we'd been told would happen to us.

greaves: all right, begin restart drill.

narrator: in the heat of the situation,

they have no time to figure out why the autopilot is still on.

townley-freeman: on.

greaves: anything? anything?

townley-freeman: no. moody: again.

greaves: all right, then. from the top. battery.

townley-freeman: check. on.

greaves: cross-feed valves.

townley-freeman: open.

greaves: fire switch.

townley-freeman: in.

narrator: the standard restart drill takes up to three minutes to complete.

plunging from the sky, the crew has fewer than ten chances

to get their engines going before they run out of time.

greaves: come on.

moody: again, gentlemen.

greaves: all right. from the top. battery.

townley-freeman: check. on.

greaves: cross-feed valves?

townley-freeman: open.

greaves: fire switch?

townley-freeman: in.

narrator: at 32,000 feet,

captain eric moody decides

to turn the plane back

toward the closest airport,

halim, just outside jakarta.

but even that is too far away

if he can't get at least some of the engines going again.

greaves: jakarta, speedbird 9 turning left,

back to halim out of 3-0-0.

controller: speedbird 9, radar cannot see you.

squawk alpha 7700.

narrator: air traffic control asks them to transmit

the emergency transponder signal.

greaves: jakarta, speedbird 9.

we are already squawking 7700.

narrator: now the crew is flying back to an airport

that can't find them on the radar.

without the constant rumble of the engines, the cabin is quiet.

some of the passengers feel the plane beginning to descend.

but without communication from the cockpit,

they can only guess.

capewell: the quietness was unbelievable

'cause it was sort of,

the airplane was no engines, nothing.

it seemed to be eerie, you know, a bit surreal, really,

because like as if you was in, suspended in space or something.

all we could feel was this quietness

and the whimpering from the few people that were really upset.

tootell ferguson: some people were sitting quite rigidly

almost as if they hadn't noticed anything.

at first it was, it was sheer fear,

and then after a while it turns to acceptance.

you know you're going to die.

we knew we were going to die.

narrator: captain moody can't restart the engines

unless he can keep the plane flying

between 290 and 310 miles per hour.

but the airspeed indicators aren't working.

greaves: captain, i've got 320 knots on my side.

moody: well, i've got 270.

greaves: bloody hell! it's a 50-knot difference.

moody: i'll change the speed.

narrator: falling from the sky with no engine power,

the 747 crew now has no idea how fast they're going.

but to have the best chance to restart the engines,

captain moody has to have the plane flying at the right speed.

greaves: so from that point onwards,

eric then varied the speed through,

through just about a 100-knot range

hoping that at some point or other,

coincidental with us putting the fuel into the engines,

that we would actually be at the right speed.

narrator: to change speeds,

captain moody turns the autopilot off.

then he slowly pulls the nose of the jet up to slow it

and then pushes it down to increase his speed.

the upsetting rollercoaster movement

adds to the panic felt in the cabin.

[beeping]

townley-freeman: pressure warning, captain.

we're at 10,000.

moody: pressure warning?

that's, that's not supposed to do that.

and a warning horn went off.

now this didn't ever happen on the simulator in this exercise,

so it was a bit of a surprise to us.

narrator: as well as providing electrical power,

the engines on a jumbo jet help keep the cabin pressurized.

greaves: with the engines not working, of course,

the air wasn't being pumped in,

so gradually the pressure was leaking away.

narrator: with all four engines gone,

the pressurized air is rapidly seeping out.

the thinning level of oxygen makes passengers gasp.

[coughing]

the crew reach for their oxygen masks,

but first officer greaves can't get his mask to work.

greaves: my oxygen mask, yeah,

that was a problem i could have done without.

it was stowed above my head,

and when i pulled the oxygen mask down,

the mask and the tube became separated.

narrator: the captain must make a difficult choice.

if he continues to descend slowly,

it will get increasingly difficult

for first officer greaves to breathe.

moody: i said look, if we get down to 20,000 feet quickly,

we can all take our oxygen masks off

and we can talk and we're back as a crew again.

greaves: we had to actually increase the rate of descent

to descend to a lower altitude quicker,

which in the circumstances

was something that we wouldn't really have chosen to do.

moody: so then i dived the airplane

and got rid of about 6,000 feet in a minute.

narrator: the loss of cabin pressure and the steep dive

have another terrifying consequence.

[screaming]

capewell: the things shot down.

they sort of dangle down in front of you,

and i looked to see if stephen had got his,

and chas had pulled his out of the socket.

so i made sure that chas got his oxygen.

i seen a few movies on planes,

and, you know, once that happens,

you know you're in serious trouble.

welch: help me.

tootell ferguson: yeah, here we go.

breathe normally, mum, not deeply.

breathe calmly.

tootell ferguson: the oxygen masks came down.

is yours working?

welch: no, i'm not getting anything.

narrator: the cabin crew tries to use the public address system

to explain what's going on.

but it's not working.

chief steward graham skinner makes do with a low-tech backup.

[blows into microphone]

skinner: can you hear me?

we're having a small problem with the public address system,

so if you would, place your masks over your mouth and nose

and breathe normally.

narrator: in the cockpit, first officer roger greaves

manages to fix his broken oxygen mask,

but he's still frustrated by engines that won't start.

greaves: alright, barrie, let's start the restart drill. ready?

townley-freeman: set.

greaves: battery? townley-freeman: check. on.

greaves: standby power? townley-freeman: on.

greaves: anything?

come on, anything?

townley-freeman: no.

greaves: all right, then.

let's do it from the top. battery?

townley-freeman: check. on.

narrator: first officer greaves and engineer barrie townley-freeman

have actually shortened the standard restart drill.

it's giving them more chances to get the engines going,

but so far nothing's working.

greaves: come on, you old sod.

the process that we were going through the whole time

was just continuous.

we hadn't had any success with the drill at all,

despite all the efforts we were putting in.

but it was the only thing we had left to cling on to,

so that's what we did.

from the top again. battery?

townley-freeman: check. on.

moody: i have no idea-- i don't think any of us have--

how many times we tried to restart those engines.

if i say 20, i would think that's too low.

if i say 50, i would think that's probably about right.

narrator: as the plane falls lower and lower,

captain moody faces a brutal choice.

a mountain range cuts across the island of java

between his plane and the airport.

he knows he has to be at least 11,000 feet high to clear it.

but if his engines don't restart soon, they won't make it.

at this rate, it will crash in a matter of minutes.

it's just a question of where.

captain moody decides if the engines don't restart soon,

he'll turn back toward the ocean and try landing on the water.

greaves: all right, are we getting something?

townley-freeman: it's not starting.

moody: i knew it was so difficult to land airplanes on the sea

even when you had everything going for you,

and i thought, well, we haven't got much going for us here.

i'd never done it before.

narrator: hiding his concern,

captain moody addresses the passengers and crew.

moody: ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking.

we have a small problem.

all four engines have stopped.

we are doing our damnedest to get it under control.

i trust you are not in too much distress.

[whimpering]

narrator: most of the passengers expect the worst.

capewell: "ma, in trouble.

plane going down.

will do best for the boys.

we love you.

sorry, pa."

i thought we were going down, heading for the ocean to crash.

and i thought if she got the note, you know,

she knew we were still thinking about her

and we did whatever we could.

tootell ferguson: will we be burnt alive,

will we be choked by the smoke,

or will the aircraft break up in the air

and hurtle us out into space, which was my biggest fear.

or will we come down in the sea and be eaten by sharks alive,

or will we crash into a mountain?

let's crash into a mountain quickly and get all this over.

greaves: well?

townley-freeman: nothing. it's not starting.

narrator: the captain must decide to keep flying

and likely crash into the mountains

or turn around and ditch into the sea.

chas: i don't know how to swim.

capewell: i couldn't swim anyway, so i thought, well, you know,

i'm doomed anyway, and i'll just hope

that maybe one of the passengers might help the two boys

to make sure that they could stay afloat.

greaves: well, anything? townley-freeman: no!

greaves: all right, then. from the top again. battery?

we had very few chances left of starting the engines

before having to turn out to sea again

because we wouldn't have been able to clear the mountains

on the south coast of java.

greaves: start lever? townley-freeman: cut off!

greaves: fuel pressure? townley-freeman: available.

greaves: standby ignition on.

narrator: and then, as suddenly as it stopped working,

the fourth engine roars back to life.

townley-freeman: engine 4 back on line!

capewell: then all of a sudden there was

this sort of like somebody

had given the airplane a punch from underneath,

and then i realized that it might have been an engine.

it was a boom.

tootell ferguson: oh, my god! welch: look!

greaves: the noise that a rolls royce engine makes

when it starts up

is a low rumbling noise, you know,

and it was, it was just, well, it was wonderful to hear it.

narrator: a 747 can fly with one engine,

but captain moody knows that just one engine

still won't give him enough power to clear the mountains.

moody: the glass now is half full.

it's not half empty.

we're now in with a real chance, and i tell you what,

the three of us would have dragged that airplane

around the whole island of java.

narrator: as the plane falls past 13,000 feet,

another engine sputters and comes back to life.

townley-freeman: engine 3 back on line!

narrator: it's followed quickly by the final two.

townley-freeman: i don't believe it.

engines 1 and 2 both back on line!

narrator: from almost certain disaster,

the crippled jet is now under full power.

tootell ferguson: oh, my god, mum.

capewell: i realized then that we could make it back to--

not to perth, but to an airport.

that's all we wanted was to land on the earth

and, you know, be part of the living again,

'cause while we were up there we were dead.

greaves: jakarta, speedbird 9.

we are back in business.

all four running. all four running.

narrator: this time, local controllers

have no trouble understanding the message.

controller: speedbird 9.

all four engines serviceable again.

confirm continuing to halim.

greaves: affirmative, affirmative.

moody: we say right, let's get this thing on the ground

as quickly as we can.

ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking.

we seem to have overcome that problem

and have managed to start all the engines.

[laughter and applause]

[sigh]

we are diverting to jakarta

and expect to land in about 15 minutes.

narrator: captain moody begins climbing,

putting plenty of room between his plane

and the mountains below.

but as he does,

the strange lights that he saw when the crisis began

reappear in front of the jet.

moody: now, as soon as we got to 15,000 feet,

the st. elmo's fire started again.

now, i'm not slow, so i thought let's get out of here quickly.

narrator: but before he can descend very far,

the plane is stricken again.

townley-freeman: engine 2 is surging.

tootell ferguson: oh, no, not again!

greaves: the whole airplane was shaking.

it was just going bang, bang, bang.

tootell ferguson: the atmosphere in the cabin

was very tense and very quiet.

by then i think very few people were talking.

i think there were quite a lot of prayers going up.

narrator: the engines backfire violently.

the captain must make another fateful decision.

moody: begin shutdown drill.

greaves: checklist power and gear.

moody: off.

greaves: thrust lever. moody: closed.

greaves: we were reluctant to do it

as you can probably understand but, you know,

that was it, so we were back on three engines.

narrator: as the plane closes in on the airport,

first officer greaves thinks the windshield

is covered in moisture, making it hard to see through.

greaves: and i said, i said to eric,

i said it's a bit misty out there.

so we turned, turned the blowers on

to kind of, you know,

like demisters on your car to try and clear that.

that didn't work.

i used the windscreen wipers, and that didn't work.

narrator: somehow the glass itself has been badly damaged.

moody: for some unknown reason

i looked out the edge of my windscreen,

and about a two-inch strip down the edge on the left-hand side

i could see much more clearly,

but i couldn't see anything much out the front.

it was getting more and more opaque

the nearer and nearer we got to the lights.

narrator: the crew gets a final unwelcome surprise.

equipment on the ground

that helps them descend at the proper angle

isn't working.

controller: jakarta atc.

be advised our glide path is unserviceable.

greaves: the localizer which gives you the left and right

of the runway center line, that was working,

but the glide slope which gives you

the actual profile for the descent

was not working.

narrator: after all the troubles they've been through,

now the crew has to land their plane manually.

greaves: we then continued with eric flying the localizer

and me calling out the distance and the altitude

that he should be at.

300 feet, captain.

so he was then able to adjust his rate of descent

to what i was telling him

as far as the glide slope was concerned.

200.

150 feet, captain.

100.

50 feet.

30 feet.

welch: oh, my god.

tootell ferguson: oh, my god!

[applause]

chas: we're on the runway!

moody: reverse.

[applause]

greaves: 90 knots, 80 knots.

[laughter]

moody: we're down.

i could really go for a cold soda.

the airplane just landed itself.

it seemed to, anyway, kiss the earth.

it was beautiful.

greaves: that's, that's amazing.

narrator: safely on the ground at halim airport in jakarta,

passengers celebrate the end of a harrowing ordeal.

they also want to know what happened.

no fire had been found, so why had smoke filled the cabin?

how could all four engines have stopped at nearly the same time?

and what were the strange lights that surrounded the plane?

in the cockpit, the flight crew is relieved

but also concerned that they might be at fault.

greaves: the first thing that we did,

having parked the airplane and shut it all down,

was to then go through all the paperwork

to see if there was possibly anything anywhere in it

that might have given us any pre-warning

of some sort of phenomenon that caused what happened to us.

moody: ...every time, 'cause it's gonna come back to us.

narrator: the damage to the 747 is extensive.

from the outside, the crew realizes

that their windshield has been deeply scratched.

they see bare metal showing through

where the paint has somehow been stripped away.

and they still have no idea why any of this happened.

moody: we went back the next day to look at it in daylight.

the airplane had lost its sheen

and in some places it had been sandblasted quite well,

and all the decals and the paint had come off.

really it was very little to see,

until they stripped the engines down.

narrator: the engines were manufactured by rolls royce.

their investigation is led by a former rolls royce engineer,

malcolm grayburn.

malcolm grayburn: we did do a forensic analysis

of the engines,

and we did record it all in terms of photographic analysis,

and also we did a lot of laboratory analysis.

narrator: grayburn discovers the engines were choked

with fine dust, pieces of rock and sand.

when it was closely studied,

they learned that the debris was clearly volcanic ash.

days after their harrowing flight,

the passengers and crew learn that the night they were flying

there had been a major eruption of the mount galunggung volcano

located just 100 miles southeast of jakarta.

[explosion]

tom casadevall is director of the u.s. geological survey

and has studied the galunggung volcano.

tom casadevall: indonesia is the world's most volcanically active country.

it has more than 130 historically active volcanoes,

meaning volcanoes which have erupted

in the last several thousand years.

galunggung erupted explosively early in the 1980s.

in april, may, june of 1982,

the eruptions became increasingly more powerful.

narrator: the eruptions were large

and the damage on the ground was extensive.

more than 60,000 people were evacuated

from the area around the mountain.

the night flight 9 flew nearby, the volcano erupted again.

as the ash cloud rose more than 49,000 feet into the night,

winds pushed it to the southwest,

right into the path of british airways flight 9.

never before had a volcanic cloud

seriously affected an airplane.

could the ash have crippled this flight?

moody: roger, declare emergency.

greaves: mayday, mayday, mayday.

speedbird 9.

we have lost all four engines.

casadevall: unlike ash that you might see in a chimney

or after a fire in a forest,

this is not soft material at all.

this is very fine ground-up particles

of solid rock and minerals.

this material is very, very abrasive.

it's very angular in shape.

if you were to see it under a microscope,

you would see very sharp angles,

and so that's what caused the abrasion.

narrator: in addition to sandblasting the windshield

and all the leading edges of the plane,

could the ash cloud explain all the other strange phenomena

the passengers and crew had experienced?

casadevall: remember, the aircraft is moving

close to 500 miles per hour as it's flying into that cloud.

even though it's a very fine material,

it can still cause abrasion and friction

on the skin of the aircraft.

because it's such a dry environment up there,

that frictional electrification produces the glow

that we refer to as st. elmo's fire.

narrator: the electrification also caused the interference

in communication experienced by the crew.

controller: speedbird 9, you have lost number 4 engine?

narrator: some of the volcanic ash

that was sucked in and ground up by the engines

was also blown into the plane,

and when passengers and crew saw it swirling through the cabin,

they feared the worst.

casadevall: you're a passenger, you're looking out the window.

suddenly you start breathing this sulfurous,

sulfur-laden air in the cabin,

and it probably is a choking, probably a shocking sensation.

it's essentially a house-of-horrors-type situation.

narrator: while the volcanic ash caused the visible scarring,

filled the plane with smoke and fouled communications,

did it also cause the engines to flame out as well?

grayburn: ...and x-rayed from front to back of the engine.

narrator: a turbofan jet engine works

by sucking in enormous amounts of air.

the air is then highly pressurized

by the engine's compressor.

this tightly packed air is mixed with fuel and ignited.

the force of this reaction propels the jet through the sky.

grayburn: the temperatures in the combustion chamber

where this ash is flowing through

are around 2,000 degrees centigrade,

and so volcanic ash we know melts

at about 1,300, 1,400 degrees.

narrator: but when the liquid ash reached deeper into the engine,

it cooled slightly, turning it into a sticky, molten goo.

it attached itself to the engine and began choking it.

grayburn: we got a fundamental disturbance of the airflow

in the main core of the engine,

which caused the engine to backfire,

and the engines flamed out,

and that was the cause of the problem.

narrator: backfires occur when the engine isn't burning cleanly.

chas: the engine's on fire!

narrator: there's too much fuel and not enough oxygen.

townley-freeman: engine failure, number 4.

moody: fire action, number 4.

greaves: checklist power and gear.

townley-freeman: set.

narrator: on flight 9, the backfires were the cause

of the enormous jets of flame

many passengers saw behind the engines.

after struggling against the choking effects

of the ash cloud,

the engines on board the 747 flamed out.

what grayburn found next

was that a remarkable piece of chemistry saved the plane.

grayburn: as soon as you came out of the volcanic ash

and the engines were not running, remember,

so everything cooled down,

it was enough for this stuff to break off

and allow the engines to restart.

narrator: when enough of the molten ash was gone,

the engines were clear again,

and townley-freeman's frantic efforts to restart them

paid off.

townley-freeman: engine 4 back on line!

casadevall: we have learned quite a bit

and we've incorporated this learning into pilot training.

pilots now, for example, know what signs to look for

when they might be in an ash cloud,

and those signs include the odor of sulfur in the cabin,

dust accumulating in the cabin,

and if you're at night you might look out

and see the frictional electrification

or the st. elmo's fire

on the leading edges of the aircraft.

narrator: another important lesson learned from flight 9

is that volcanic ash clouds do not appear

on normal weather radar, which reflects water.

since the clouds are dry,

they're all but invisible to radar.

that knowledge has led to better communications

between the geologists that study volcanoes

and the international airlines that fly over them.

the crew of flight 9

was showered with awards and commendations

in the months after their incredible night.

grayburn: i thought the airmanship

displayed by this crew during this event

was absolutely fantastic,

the way that they managed to guide this aircraft

back down to a safe landing

after having been through such extreme circumstances.

it was fantastic the way they recovered this aircraft,

absolutely brilliant.

narrator: for everyone on board flight 9,

the terrifying plunge through the skies had a lasting impact.

betty tootell was so struck by the events of that night

that she wrote a book about the ordeal.

charles capewell and his two sons

made it home two days after they touched down in jakarta.

25 years later both chas and stephen still live in perth.

capewell: our time hadn't came, and that was it.

from then on i took a different view of life.

when your time comes there's nothing you can do,

but you can still hope, and we hoped and we got out of it.

narrator: not long after the fateful flight,

captain eric moody created the galunggung gliding club.

every member of the crew and all passengers

were automatically admitted to this exclusive group.

the survivors of british airways flight 9

happily stay in touch to this day.