All language subtitles for Mayday.S05E01.Explosive.Evidence.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.H.264-playWEB_track3_[eng]

A crowded 747
has disappeared
over the Atlantic.

Air India's not showing up.

Pieces are found scattered
on the ocean's surface.

But the vital clues are deeper
than any air crash investigation
has ever gone.

In this accident,
we had nothing.

It was just mind boggling.

An international
recovery effort goes

to the very bottom of the sea
to rebuild the shattered plane.

What they discover will send
shockwaves around the world.

Mayday! Mayday!

Early morning,
June the 23rd, 1985.

A 747 flies
across the Atlantic Ocean,
9.5 kilometers above the water.

The jumbo jet
is nicknamed Kanishka,

after an Indian emperor...

and Air India
promises passengers
it will be a palace in the sky.

Indian hospitality

is something that the culture
prides itself on.

And you do experience that
when you fly Air India.

The colors are rich
and warm inside...

It's your gateway to India.

On its way
from Canada,

the plane is heading
to London, England,

before continuing on
to New Delhi.

It's been in the air
for four-and-a-half hours.

Captain Hanse Narendra
is a veteran Air India pilot.

Satwinder Bhinder
is a captain, too,

who's serving
as first officer
on the flight.

As the plane nears land,
Bhinder talks with
the flight's purser.

- Yes, sir?
- Dinshaw.

Do me a small favor.

At the back of the plane,
seat 54,
a boy is sitting there.

He just wanted to have
a look in the cockpit.

Can I send him now?

After about 15-20 minutes.

There are
329 people on board,
including passengers and crew.

Many of them are flying to India
to visit family or friends.

Vishnu Pada is
traveling to India
with his two daughters.

Their mother, Lata,
is already waiting
for them there.

We had decided
that it would be
the ideal year

to take
an extended vacation

in India as a family.

Six minutes
after 08:00 in the morning,

co-pilot Bhinder
makes radio contact

with Air Traffic Control
in Ireland.

Shanwick, Air India 182.
Good morning.

Station calling Shannon.
Go ahead again, please.

Thomas Lane
and Michael Quinn

are working
at the Shannon Control Center.

Air India 182 is 51 North,
15 West, at level 310.

Estimate FIR at 07:35.

Air India 182,
Shannon, roger.

Cleared for London,
flight level 3-1-0.

Air India 182
is clear to London,

maintain 3-1-0.

Do you want
to come up front now?

- Yeah.
- Okay.

Let's go.

It's a light morning
at Shannon Control.

They're dealing
with just three planes.

But something peculiar
has happened.

The signals
are all jumbled up.

The signals
on radar merged

so that it was
totally impossible

to read the call signs
and flight levels

of any of the three aircraft.

The Air India 747
is flying at 31,000 feet.

A TWA jet is
several thousand feet
above it

and a CP flight
is 2,000 feet higher.

All are traveling east.

Because the planes are stacked
on top of each other,

the signals have merged
on the controllers'
two-dimensional screen.

Tom moved
a tracker ball on radar

and separated the signals.

Two of the planes
reappear on the radar,

but the Air India flight
has vanished.

Air India is not showing up.

Hold on a minute.

Air India 182, do you read?

Air India 182,
this is Shannon.
Do you read? Over.

It's 08:14
in the morning.

I had a gut feeling.

To this day, I don't know why
I picked up the phone.

Yes, it's Michael Quinn
at Shannon.

We have a plane off-radar.

Normally, a distress call
to Search and Rescue

isn't made until a plane
has been out of contact
for more than 20 minutes.

The Air India flight
has been missing
less than 60 seconds.

Several ships in the area
begin searching
for signs of the plane.

Its last known position
is some 290 kilometers
southwest of Cork.

Just two hours
after the plane disappears,

a Canadian owned cargo ship
in the area confirms the worst.

The first pieces
of wreckage are discovered.

Uninflated life rafts
are spotted
bobbing in the cold Atlantic.

Then bodies are seen.

It's quickly clear
that no one has survived.

In India, Lata Pada is waiting
for her husband
and two children to arrive,

when she hears
the news from her brother,

He sat me down
and told me that,

uh, you know,
something terrible
had happened.

But I was just...
uh, in total shock, and...

You know,
a part of me was trying
to digest the information,

and part of me
was trying to imagine

if indeed
the worst had happened,

how I was gonna continue
my life without them.

Dozens of bodies
arrive in Cork.

Many more will follow.

Now investigators are faced
with the enormous task

of finding out
how they died,

and what had caused the crash
of Air India Flight 182.

One hundred
and thirty thousand people
live in the city of Cork.

Tucked into the southern coast
of Ireland,

it's long been
a vital seaport.

On June the 23rd, 1985,
a gruesome cargo begins
arriving at the city's docks.

Just hours
after Air India Flight 182
crashes into the sea,

bodies and wreckage
are brought in by boat.

Dr. Cuimin Doyle
is a pathologist at
the Cork Regional Hospital.

The first bodies arrived
at 04:45 p.m.
on that Sunday afternoon.

And at 12:00 midnight,
we had 130 bodies.

Doyle and his team
will examine the bodies

to see if they can find
any signs of what
caused the crash.

It's an enormous undertaking
for everybody involved.

The hospital personnel, the...

the police, the Navy,
the Army, and...

pathologists like ourselves, but,

we just had to get on
and do the job.

There are
so many autopsies to perform,

that Doyle moves the work
into the building's gym.

We had three police people
working on each body.

Photographer,
a ballistics expert,
and a forensic odontologist.

That is a person who examines
the teeth, the face...

for identification purposes.

In just four days,

autopsies are performed
on 132 victims.

All parts of the body were
examined externally in detail,

and every...
every detail was noted down.

We were looking, of course,
for the causes
of the fatalities.

Doyle makes
a telling discovery.

Almost all the victims
died in the air.

Only two of the bodies
showed signs of drowning,

which indicated that the others

were... were not breathing
when they hit the water.

There's something else
that's common
to many of the victims.

A large number
have had their
clothes torn off.

Now that was important
because if they had
no clothes or little clothes,

it indicated
that they had fallen

from 31,000 feet or so,

where this
accident occurred.

Some of the bodies
also have signs
of so-called flail injuries.

These are breaks
specific to bones in the hips,
shoulders, and other joints.

H.S. Khola
is the lead investigator
into the Air India disaster.

The flail injuries tell him
the passengers

weren't in the plane
when it hit the ocean.

They are caused
by tumbling, violent motion
of the body in air.

And that is the pattern
of the injuries

when a passenger
is thrown out of the aircraft
at a high altitude.

The autopsies show
that somehow the plane
had been ripped apart

high above the water.

Passengers were thrown
into the sky
long before the plane crashed.

Based on the injuries,

we could only say
that the plane

had broken up
at 31,000 feet.

We couldn't say
what the cause
of the breakup was.

The biggest challenge
in this accident

was that we had
no physical evidence

available to us
in this accident,

in terms of wreckage,
in terms of passengers, crew,

or in terms of eyewitnesses.

In this accident,
we had nothing.

The most important job
of the investigators

is to try to find
the plane's black boxes.

The two devices record
cockpit conversation

and other technical information
about the flight of the plane.

The recorders
have radio beacons
which send out a signal

at a designated frequency.

But it's still a huge task.

The boxes are
more than 6,500 feet
below the surface,

and the radio signals
last just 30 days.

Salim Jiwa is a journalist
who has investigated
the Air India disaster.

The search for the black boxes
was urgent.

And, and...

three countries
participated in it.

England, Ireland, and India.

But even with
such a massive response,

early efforts are frustrated.

Forty-two kilohertz.

It's too high.

Can't be them.

Investigators are picking up radio signals,

but they're
at the wrong frequency.

As the search continues,

H.S. Khola and his team study
the maintenance history
of the plane.

They want to know
if an undetected flaw

had caused the jet
to come apart in flight.

They uncover a potentially
important piece of information.

The Air India jet
was flying with five engines,

A 747 normally has
four engines.

But it can carry more.

The plane was designed
so that it could transport

a malfunctioning engine
beneath its wings.

Ground crews can
mount the engine
to a bracket on the plane.

It's exactly what happened
to the Air India jet.

There was an extra engine
that a previous flight

had left behind that was mounted
on the wing of the aircraft.

The extra engine
creates substantial drag
on the left side of the plane.

If the pilots
don't properly compensate,

the plane will start turning
in that direction.

And this hypothesis continued
that there is a possibility

that this fifth engine
might have caused
the breakup of the plane.

In fact,
investigators discover

that before the plane
took off for London,

the flight engineer
noticed problems with the way
the engine was attached.

There's a small problem
in the fifth engine.

Have asked them to fix it up.

All right.

Investigators also learned that

some internal parts
of the extra engine

were taken out and stored
in Flight 182's cargo bay.

They are so enormous
that pieces of the cargo door

were removed
to make the job easier.

Some of the other parts
of the engine went
into the rear of the aircraft.

Aircraft such as the 747
can handle this quite easily.
It's routinely done.

But if the cargo door
wasn't reassembled properly,

it could have led
to an explosive decompression.

In 1974,
a cargo door blew off
a Turkish Airlines flight

shortly after it took off
from Paris.

The sudden decompression
crippled the plane.

It crashed moments later,
killing everyone on board.

Khola must consider
two theories.

Either problems
with the door,

or with the extra engine itself
brought down the plane.

If either one had taken place,
there should be evidence
on the plane's black boxes.

Finding the recorders
has become
increasingly important.

Almost two weeks
after the search begins,

investigators get news
that helps them pinpoint
the location of the black boxes.

The signal will be higher?

So this 42 kilohertz
could be it.

Tell the boats
to look again.

The piece
of the black box,

which broadcasts
the locator signal
is made of ceramic.

If it's damaged, the frequency
of the signal can change.

It means the strange frequency
ships detected earlier

could be the right one.

Both the cockpit voice recorder
and the flight data recorder
are finally located.

But they're so deep,
it's difficult to bring them up.

The aircraft was at 6,000 feet
below the sea,

and it was the depth
that was sort of defeating.

A deep sea submersible
is brought in.

But even with this
specialized vehicle,

and with the location
of the black boxes known,

it takes four attempts to bring
the recorders to the surface.

Estimate FIR at 07:35.

Air India 182,
Shannon, roger.
Cleared for London...

Lead investigator Khola
now has what he hopes

are two vital pieces
of the puzzle.

If there's any problem
with the aircraft,

the crew will be talking
about the problem.

They will not be silent
about the problem.

But when he listens
to the cockpit voice recorder,

Khola hears nothing unusual.

After the last contact
with Air Traffic Control
in Shannon,

the voice recorder picks up
the crew talking
about customs seals.

Custom seals
to seal the bar
before the arrival...

It's paperwork
that has to be completed
before landing.

They want
about 30 customs seals.

- Customs?
- Yeah.

Customs seals to seal
the bar before its arrival.

Bar--

The conversation
ends in mid-sentence.

That was it.
And then everything was,
of course, silent.

The cockpit
voice recorder indicated
that there was

no abnormality
in the cockpit.

No... No emergency.

Every conversation
was normal.

The plane's
flight data recorder
tells a similar story.

Khola pours through details
about Air India's speed,

altitude, and dozens
of other pieces of information.

The extra engine did cause
the plane to bank slightly.

And the jet's rudder was turned
11 degrees to the right.

But this was exactly
what the crew needed to do

to offset the drag
created by the fifth engine.

We found that
all parameters of the aircraft,

aircraft altitude,
aircraft heading,

aircraft bank attitude,
roll attitude,
auto-pilot engage...

Everything was working normally
till the last point.

After analyzing
both black boxes,

Khola can't find any evidence
that the plane was in trouble

before it suddenly disappeared
from radar.

But the very lack of evidence
does suggest something.

Both recorders get their power
from the plane's engines.

Both stopped at exactly
40 minutes and one second
after 08:00 in the morning.

Since the recorders
stopped working
at the same time,

the problem on the plane
had to be catastrophic enough

to sever the jet's
electronic system
before the crew could react.

Yeah, customs seals
to seal the bar
before its arrival.

Bar--

Investigators are becoming convinced

that there are only two possible
explanations for the crash.

A devastating decompression,
or a bomb.

They study the wreckage
that's been found floating
on the surface of the ocean.

But it's just a small percentage
of the entire plane,

and none of it is helpful
to investigators.

It offers no clues to explain
why the plane crashed.

We knew
there was no fire.

We knew the aircraft
was performing well.

Everything was normal.
There was no cockpit emergency,
no warning.

We got elimination
of all the things,

but we did not got the answer
as what happened.

We have to go to the cause
of the accident.

We had to go to the wreckage,

which was lying
at the bottom of the sea.

But what parts
of the plane
should investigators focus on?

The black boxes were equipped
with radio transmitters,

which made them
easier to find.

But the debris field
is deep underwater

and enormous,
some 16 kilometers long,

and six kilometers across.

How do investigators identify
the one clue that will help them
unlock the mystery?

Roy Truman
is an underwater
salvage expert.

He's brought in to do something
that's never been done before.

Retrieve the ruined pieces
of a jumbo jet
from the bottom of the ocean.

In hundreds
of thousands of pieces,

he needs to find the ones
that will explain
why the plane crashed.

Up until that time,
we had only been used

with recovering
small aircraft.

Here we're talking
about a 747,
which was huge,

and we had no idea
of the size of the pieces
and what we were gonna find.

Investigators know
they can't bring
the entire wreck to the surface.

It's so deep it takes hours
to recover a single piece.

The submersible takes
underwater video
and still photos.

Investigators use those
to decide which pieces
to bring to the surface.

It was
a narrow corridor,
and at each end of the corridor

it was very light wreckage.

All of the heavy stuff,

engines,
main aircraft structure, was...

was in the middle
of the wreckage field.

Like searching
for a needle
in an underwater haystack,

investigators hope to discover
the cause of the crash
in a tangle of ruined metal.

But autumn is coming.

Soon, the weather
will turn bad,

and they'll have to abandon
their search.

The key
to unlocking the disaster

still lies somewhere
at the bottom of the ocean.

Investigators from India
are scouring the ocean floor,

trying to find out why
Air India Flight 182
fell from the sky.

As the work continues
in Ireland, there's
growing suspicion in Canada

that the Air India crash
was no accident.

As police and investigators sift
through the list of passengers
on the plane,

they find something peculiar.

Many of the passengers
who were on Air India Flight 182

began their day in Vancouver.

They were using another plane
to connect to Flight 182.

One of the passengers who bought
a ticket for that plane

never got on.

Well, the passenger, um...

we have
never identified him per se,

but the ticket identified him
as M. Singh.

Uh, it simply had an initial
but no full name.

Uh, we believe
that name to be...
was fictitious...

And that the person
never intended to travel.

While he
never boarded the plane,

M. Singh did check in.

Next, please.

New York to Toronto?

And I want my bag
checked through to Delhi.

Sir, I can't do that.

Your reservation
is only confirmed to Toronto.

Oh, I am confirmed.

This is my ticket.

Jeannie Adams
is a ticket agent

working for Canadian Pacific.

Mr. Singh...

You are on standby to Delhi.
I can't.

But then
I have to pick up my bag.

I can't check your bags
through to India

if you are not confirmed.

But I am indeed confirmed.

Wait. I'll get my brother.

He'll tell you.

There are
as many as 30 people
waiting to check in.

Sir, your reservation
is only confirmed...

Adams doesn't have time
to wait for the man's brother.

Uh, okay, okay.
I'll check it through.

But you have to check
with Air India
when you get to Toronto.

Your seat is 10-B.

Even though
Singh doesn't have a ticket

taking him to India, his bag
is checked straight through.

His luggage is loaded.

But no one notices that Singh
never boards the plane

that leaves Vancouver.

She broke the rules
as they were.

She should not
have allowed that

to go through
for a New Delhi interline.

But she was so bullied
and so browbeaten

by Mr. Singh
in front of everybody else,

that I think,
to her eternal sadness
and... and heartbreak,

um, she gave in.

Singh's marooned bag
didn't raise any concerns

when it was loaded
in Vancouver.

Since the Air India flight
was international,

when the bag
arrived in Toronto,

it faced a more strict series
of inspections.

This is what
it will sound like.

John de Souza
is a security officer
for Air India.

The day of the flight,
he demonstrated
a portable explosives detector

for baggage handlers
in Toronto.

Chemicals in a match
triggered the device,

as would chemicals
used in some explosives.

Okay?

The portable device
was put to use
because the X-ray machine,

which normally scans
every piece of luggage,
had broken down.

The technology,
especially the X-ray technology,

were very... very weak,

very in their infancy
at that time,
and it didn't work reliably.

And in the case
of the Air India episode,

the technology
went quite badly wrong,

which was
one of the tragedies
of this situation.

As security workers
use the portable explosives wand
on the bags,

everything seemed normal
until they got
to the maroon bag.

The bag did
trigger the device.

But the sound it made
was very different

from the one workers heard
during the demonstration.

The bag was passed
and allowed on board the plane,

eventually flying
towards England.

As Air India Flight 182 flies

over the Atlantic Ocean
carrying M. Singh's bag,

an explosion rips
through Tokyo's Narita Airport.

Two baggage handlers
are killed.

Four people are injured.

A bomb has been hidden
inside another piece
of luggage

that came from Vancouver.

Luggage that was bound
for another Air India jet.

And it was headed
for the cargo hold

when it exploded
on the ground.

Once it was put on,
the bag was

probably just thumped
a little bit, and...

it exploded as the...

the two Japanese
baggage handlers

were putting it
on a conveyor belt.

Just as on Flight 182,
one of the bags
being moved in Tokyo,

was checked in by a passenger
who never boarded the flight.

There was no X-ray machines
in use at Vancouver Airport.

There was nothing
to stop that bag
from flying to Tokyo.

There's
a disturbing connection

between the Tokyo bombing
and the Air India flight.

The tickets for the men
who checked both bags

were bought on the same day
by the same customer.

The single crash
of Air India Flight 182

has suddenly become part
of a much larger story.

With the apparent connection
between the two incidents,

investigators in Ireland
are extremely interested
in what police find in Tokyo.

Soon after the bombing,
forensic experts descend
on Japan's Narita Airport.

There are
traces of evidence everywhere.

The Narita bombing, um,
was within a confined space.

So unlike the Air India
Flight 182 situation

where we had debris scattered
over nine miles of...

under the ocean
and pretty hard to retrieve,

we had the,
in a sense,
the good fortune

of a contained area
where an explosive device
went off.

Pieces of metal
and circuit boards
are embedded in the walls.

Explosive residue clings
to parts of the container
that housed the bomb.

Amazingly,
Japanese forensic experts
were able to pick out

tiny parts and fragments
and all the analysis

finally led Japanese police
to identify the vehicle

that was used to
carry the bomb.

Experts even find
serial numbers
on pieces of the wreckage,

clues that show
the bomb was hidden
inside a specific stereo tuner

made by Sanyo.

All 2,000 tuners
that were ever made

were shipped to a warehouse
near Vancouver,
British Columbia.

From there, they were sent
to stores across the region.

One of those tuners
carried the bomb
that exploded at Narita.

Police have a difficult task
trying to trace
the sale of 2,000 tuners.

They could have been sold
to anyone.

Most of the stores
that had received the tuner
had been sold out for years.

But police get a break
when they ask about the tuner

at a store in Duncan,
a tiny town
on Vancouver Island.

The last unit had been sold
just a few weeks ago.

They were able to figure out

who bought the stereo tuner
which contained the bomb.

Police obtained
the same sort of tuner

that was used
to house the bomb
on Air India.

They conduct tests
to see how big the bomb
would have to be

to create the sort of damage
that was found in Tokyo.

There was
a progressive experimentation

using dynamite...

...to find out
the extent of damage

particular strengths
of dynamite
would cause.

They match the size
of the tuner fragments
made after each explosion

with the fragments
that were found at Narita.

They discover that
just a few sticks of dynamite

were likely used
in the Tokyo bomb.

But could just four sticks
of dynamite
really bring down a jet?

Once they discover
just how powerful
the Narita bomb was,

police place it
into a fully loaded
luggage container.

The devastation is enormous.

Any decompression
caused by an event,

or an explosive device
in the luggage hold

would be sufficient
to cause catastrophic results
for that aircraft.

You don't need much.

Four sticks of dynamite
can do the job.

The cramped quarters
of a cargo hold
amplify the power of a bomb.

Tests conducted
at Penn State University

show that the shockwaves
created from a bomb blast

don't travel
in just one direction,

but reverberate
inside a luggage container,

building on each other,

vastly increasing
the initial force
of the explosion.

If a bomb had indeed exploded
in the cargo hold of Air India,

it would have caused
enormous amounts
of destruction.

It's the sort of damage
that should have
left its mark

on the remains
of Flight 182.

Investigators have
a growing suspicion

that this plane
was brought down
by a bomb.

But they still have no proof.

So the investigators were

not only looking for, uh,

something that was broken
that might have caused
the failure, but,

they were looking for signs

of what caused
the explosion,

such as burning,
or solvent stains,

or possibly shrapnel
in seats.

It meant a lot tighter scrutiny
of every piece of wreckage.

We kept on
analyzing each photograph.

Is it giving any indication
of an explosion?

Is it giving
any impact damage?

Knowing his time
is running out,

Khola selects
a few key pieces
of the plane

to bring to the surface.

Bad weather forces him
to leave the rest behind.

Khola hopes the bits
he does have can prove
there was a bomb on board.

Each piece that's brought up
is carefully mapped

to its original position
on the jet.

One of the most
promising sections
brought up from the bottom

is the floor
of the front cargo bay.

When we recovered
that item, we found

that it had holes which are
of a very special nature,

penetration from
inside to outside
at a very high speed,

curling of the edges
of that one.

And that was
indicative of,

that perhaps this is the place
where the explosion
had occurred.

As many as
20 holes are found.

In each,
the metal is bent outward,
like the petals of a flower.

These are classic signs
of something being blown out
from the cargo bay.

On the side wall
of the cargo bay,
investigators find more clues.

Additional holes are discovered,
like the ones on the floor.

These also appear to have been
blown out from the cargo hold.

A closer study of the ceiling
of the cargo bay
also indicates that

the ribs connecting it
to the fuselage
were broken by being forced up.

Investigators are convinced
that the wreckage shows

that a bomb had exploded
in the forward cargo hold.

If the bomb had gone off
in the front of the plane,

it would explain why
the flight data recorder

and cockpit voice recorder
cut off so quickly.

Like other 747s,

the electronics bay
on the Air India flight
is located below the cockpit.

Many of the important
electrical systems on the plane
run through here.

The forward
luggage compartment
is right beside it.

And so,
when the bomb went off,

the explosion
would have taken out
the computers completely,

and there would have been
absolutely dead silence.

And that's
precisely what happened.

Investigators are convinced
that Air India Flight 182

has been destroyed
by a bomb.

This was no accident.

The crash
of the passenger jet
was a crime.

Nobody.
Nobody... thought

that such an evil plot

of blowing two aircrafts
simultaneously would occur
from Vancouver.

Exhaustive detective work
creates a clear picture

of what likely happened
on board the Air India jet.

In Toronto,

M. Singh's bag is taken
off the Vancouver flight

and moved
onto the Air India jet.

It's put
into a luggage container

that's eventually placed
at the front of the jet...

right behind
the plane's electronics bay.

As the plane sailed
over the Atlantic Ocean,

the crew had no warning
that a bomb was ticking down
to disaster.

They want about
30 custom seats.

Customs?

Yeah, custom seals.
To seal the bar
before its arrival.

Bar--

When the force
of the blast
hit the floor of the jet,

it pushed it violently upwards.

The thin fuselage
would have been blown apart.

The air pressure
inside the plane
would have rushed out

tearing passengers
from the cabin
and fatally crippling the jet.

The debris,
scattered over nine miles,

is an indication of how...

how rapidly and how...

how fearsome
this whole decompression was.

But in this instance,
the aircraft completely

didn't stand
a chance of flight.

There was no way
of continuing flight
in this case.

As the jet
fell towards the sea,

the forces
put on the fuselage
tore it apart.

It would have a tail torn off
and the wings
would start breaking...

and there's no way
of sustaining flight after that.

It goes into gyrations.

Once it goes into gyrations,
there was just
massive structural failure.

After months
of painstaking work,

investigators believe
they have unraveled the cause
of the Air India crash.

They've proven a bomb
brought the plane down.

It's now up to police
to find the bombers.

But with so many deaths,
and so many more possible

if the Narita bomb
had exploded in midair,

there's immediate interest
in making passenger jets safer.

This was
one of the biggest disaster

in the Indian aviation history.

And it
could have been avoided

if the procedures
were in place.

As the hunt
for the killers continues,

extraordinary steps are taken
to tighten security

and to see if jets
can be made to withstand
the force of a bomb.

It's May 19th, 1997,

more than ten years
after a terrorist bomb

destroyed Air India Flight 182.

An out of service 747

is about to take part
in a remarkable test.

Two bombs are placed
in the front cargo bay.

Two more are put in the back.

Well, the Bruntingthorpe test
was actually

intended to prove
five years' worth of research.

That we can
protect an airplane

using hardened
luggage containers,

or hard liners
in the cargo hold.

The plane
is also pressurized
to simulate the conditions

a jet would encounter
at cruising altitude.

Pressurization is the key
to that kind of experiment.

The added energy that you have
from the pressurization
inside the airplane

adds to the damage.

You can think of it
as a balloon.

If you take a pin
and you put it in a balloon

that's un inflated,
you get just a simple hole...

the size of the pin.

However, if you
blow that balloon up

and you hit it with a pin,
it pops catastrophically.

When the bombs
are detonated...

the result is devastating.

The force of the blast,
plus the pressure inside the jet
just tore the plane apart.

And that's the closest
we can come to seeing

what would have happened
to a jet in flight.

The destructive power
of bombs on jets is well known.

But what the tests
at Bruntingthorpe showed

was that
relatively simple measures

can substantially minimize
the damage caused
by an explosion.

One of the bombs
in the rear cargo hold

was placed
in a normal luggage container.

But the bombs
in the front cargo hold
were different.

One was placed
in a specialized container

strengthened with a material
similar to that found
in bulletproof vests.

The other was put
in a normal container,

but placed beside walls

that had been reinforced

with a blast absorbing liner.

When the bombs explode,
the front of the plane
is virtually untouched.

We had no breach
of the airplane skin
with the liner

or with
the hardened
luggage containers.

But towards
the rear of the airplane,
or the tail,

where we didn't have
any of the hardened materials,

there was a catastrophic failure
for the airplane.

The standard
luggage container did nothing
to minimize the blast.

Both the protective lining
in the front cargo bay

and the hardened luggage
container were able to absorb

the force of the explosion.

It's only speculation.
Would steps like these
have saved Air India?

Very likely.

Would they make
the industry safer today?

Absolutely.

Despite the dramatic results
of the tests in Britain,

hardened luggage containers
are not used
by the world's airlines.

While effective
at stopping bombs,

they're extremely expensive.

The hardened containers
are not in use now,

because it's just not
economically feasible.

The containers cost
tens of thousands of dollars
just to purchase,

and they're very fragile,
they're composite material,

so if you run into the side
of them with a forklift,

they're pretty much useless
from that point forward.

There have been
significant improvements made

to the way
that passenger luggage

is screened
at most international airports.

More sophisticated
color X-ray systems

using multiple
scanning beams
are now used.

But I am indeed confirmed.

Wait. I'll get my brother.

He'll tell you.

Uh, okay, okay.
I'll check it through.

But you have to check
with Air India
when you get to Toronto.

And there are
stricter regulations about
luggage getting sent forward

on connecting flights.

In the case of Air India,
the most important thing
of all

was passenger baggage
reconciliation.

This is the key...

to detecting
an explosive device,
or a terrorist.

No plane leaves

with baggage unattached
to a specific passenger

inside that plane.

And that must be so.

Your seat is 10-B.

I think one of the...

the most difficult piece...

of news
for the families to accept

was the many ways
in which this tragedy
could have been prevented.

I mean, it was...

absolutely unforgivable
that a bag could be interlined

to another destination without
a passenger accompanying it.

The quality
of training that security guards
at airports get

also came under scrutiny
during the years
after the Air India crash.

It's still an area of concern
for some security experts.

There's a real failure
to train security personnel.

And that failure

is because you cannot pay
rent-a-cops subsistence wages

to look after your security when
you get on board an aircraft.

In the Air India case,

police eventually traced
the bombing to Sikh extremists
living in Canada.

They're fighting to have
an independent Sikh homeland
created in India.

The man who confessed
to assembling the bomb
is sent to prison.

The man suspected
of masterminding the plot

is killed several years later
while under arrest in India.

Both men had deep ties
to Canada's West Coast
Sikh community,

It's a connection
that still bothers Lata Pada.

It was a deliberate act
of terrorism

and hurts even more
that they were executed
by Canadians,

on Canadian soil,
against Canadians.

More than 20 years
after the destruction
of the Air India flight,

the shock of the day
is still fresh.

And many questions
remain unanswered.

We still don't know
who the two people were
who checked in the bags.

Apart from the basics of,

uh, who made the bomb,

we don't know much about
who else assisted him.

We don't know
who picked up those tickets.

There's a vow of silence
that has hindered
the investigation.

This inquiry
will be launched immediately.

In 2006,
the Canadian government

launched an inquiry
into the Air India bombing.

Another investigation
of what happened and why.

The shocking death
of so many is

a continuing source
of anger and disbelief.

No matter
what the inquiry finds,
the sobering facts are the same.

Three hundred
and twenty-nine people
killed in an instant.

There are memorials now
in Ireland and Canada,

mourning the victims
of the Air India crash,

marking the day
a terrorist bomb ripped
through the lives of so many.

It's just so tragic about
all our lives that we lead.

Every day is an ordinary day
in our lives,

but some days,

unexpectedly,

something completely,
totally unexpected

shatters your life.
And that was
one of those moments.