Original subtitles

NARRATOR: You wouldn't think delivering

mail would be a dangerous job.

They have to try to land an airliner in a way

no pilot has ever done before.

We've lost all hydraulics.

NARRATOR: All the controls are dead.

They've become passengers in their own plane.

And somehow, they have to land it.

Even at journey's end, their ordeal isn't over.

Do not move.

FLIGHT ATTENDANT: Ladies and gentlemen,

we are starting our approach.

PILOT: We lost both engines.

FLIGHT ATTENDANT: Fasten your seat belt. Emergency decent.

PILOT May day. May day.

FLIGHT ATTENDANT: Brace for impact.

MAN: Take a lost one.

MAN: Investigation started into this crash.

MAN: It's going to crash.

NARRATOR: Baghdad, November 22, 2003.

Officially, the war in Iraq has been over for months.

But the country is violent and unstable.

No one feels safe.

The American-led coalition has been in charge of Iraq

for six months.

The Iraqi army is defeated.

Saddam Hussein, the deposed president, remains in hiding.

Ominously, the main threat is now from secret armed groups.

They are targeting civilians, both Iraqi and foreign,

in order to make the country unstable.

Perhaps, even provoke a civil war.

They have plundered Iraqi army stores

for every infantry weapon there is,

even surface-to-air missiles.

Baghdad is a very dangerous place.

Dawn, on the outskirts of the city.

Claudine Vernier-Palliez, from the French magazine

Paris Match, and her photographer Jerome,

are going to a secret meeting with Iraqi terrorists.

She's after the story that everyone wants.

Who are they?

What do they want?

The previous day, she had met the leader in a hotel room.

He called himself Abdu Abdullah,

but no one knew his real name.

INTERPRETER: Evidently, this man was very, very determined

to stop at nothing to show the Americans

that he wanted no more of them, at least

not their military tactics.

NARRATOR: Baghdad airport, key to the US presence in Iraq.

Military planes fly in daily to supply the troops

and to help rebuild the shattered country.

Because of the threat from Iraqi terrorists,

the US has established a security

zone around the airport, patrolled

by Apache helicopters.

On the tarmac today is one of the few civilian aircraft

to use the airport, An Airbus A300,

belonging to the career firm DHL.

They have won the contract to carry the soldiers mail.

INTERPRETER: They led us down little roads for a long time

to be sure we would lose our bearings.

NARRATOR: At the hotel, Claudine and her photographer

had arranged to meet the rebels at dawn

the next morning to take pictures of the fighters

with their weapons.

INTERPRETER: We arrived in a field

where we met other vehicles, among them, a pickup truck.

The men got out of the cars.

INTERPRETER: And just off the road, hidden

under some branches, the men recovered some weapons

and some missiles.

They loaded their weapons in their vehicles,

and Jerome took the pictures we wanted.

NARRATOR: The journalists have gotten the story

they came for, but Abdu Abdullah

is not finished with them yet.

He tells them to follow.

They don't know where.

CLAUDINE VERNIER-PALLIEZ:

INTERPRETER: And he told me that a new phase

in his resistance actions would be

to shoot missiles at planes.

NARRATOR: A few miles away, the DHL plane

is getting ready to depart.

Two flights a day shuttle mail and packages

in and out of the war zone.

Baghdad Tower, Oscar-Oscar-Delta-Lima-Lima,

Airbus A300, cargo, information

Sierra .

NARRATOR: The Australian Air Force is providing the air

traffic control in Baghdad.

Oscar-Oscar-Delta-Lima-Lima, clear to start.

Before, start checklist.

Start to--

NARRATOR: Captain Eric Gennotte is Belgian, 38

years old and single.

Into fuel.

NARRATOR: He realized his dearest

ambition a year ago when he qualified

to captain the Airbus A300.

In 2:45.

Door closed, AGT610.

NARRATOR: Flight engineer Mario Rofail lives in Scotland

with his wife and children.

At 54, he's the oldest and most experienced

member of the crew.

A veteran of many danger zones.

Start one.

open.

NARRATOR: The 29-year-old co-pilot, Steeve

Michielsen is also Belgian.

He's been married just three months.

Air blades.

Set.

NARRATOR: Cargo airliners are great places for young pilots

to get the hours and experience they need

to pilot commercial aircraft.

DHL has been flying into Baghdad for six months.

But there is no danger pay for crew.

The airport is an oasis of calm in the middle

of a chaotic war zone.

Nevertheless, they're aware of what's going on around them.

When we were crossing already the border from Kuwait

to Iraq, the ambience in the cockpit already changed.

You have a kind of stress, at least for me.

NARRATOR: The journalists have been taken to another location

by the terrorists.

By now, they're beginning to get uneasy.

They'd like to leave, but they have no idea where they are.

And they feel that a dangerous situation will

develop if they attempt to go.

So what's going on here?

INTERPRETER: We're going to do Special Operations today

You'll see I'll show you.

INTERPRETER: This is SAM-7.

We have them from the old Iraqi army.

We have approximately 28.

We got them from two different Iraqi army depots.

We have already fired about 25, and we only have three left.

NARRATOR: They are heat-seeking missiles, equipped with homing

devices, which detect infrared emissions

from a plane's engines.

INTERPRETER: This SAM-14, better than SAM-7.

We don't have so many.

I think we should use this one today.

It was very good before.

Before?

We shot down a plane near Nasiriyah

and my fighters recorded 177 dead.

And we shot down another plane with Americans on,

and we killed 70 men.

INTERPRETER: But no one had ever heard about this.

I didn't believe a word of it.

From all over Baghdad, you could have seen it.

So I thought the guy was making it up.

So what are you going to do with this one today?

INTERPRETER: What do you think, we're

going to shoot down a plane?

I don't really give a damn.

INTERPRETER: I'll show you.

NARRATOR: The journalists are getting worried.

What if he's not bluffing after all?

This is not the story they came for.

It's early in the day at Baghdad airport.

A DHL Airbus A300 carrying letters

home from American soldiers is just departing.

The crew is unaware that just a few miles

away, a terrorist group has its own plans for the aircraft.

Oscar-Oscar-Delta-Lima-Lima, cleared for takeoff.

Take off.

NARRATOR: The plane is a 24-year-old airliner

converted to carry cargo.

Its first stop will be the Persian Gulf state of Bahrain.

It's a journey they make twice a day.

100 knots.

V1.

Rotate.

V2.

Positive climb.

NARRATOR: Despite the calm in the cockpit,

the crew knows that below 10,000 feet,

they're vulnerable to attack from the ground.

So far, no plane in Iraq has been hit

with a surface-to-air missile.

But it's known that the terrorists now

have such weapons.

ERIC GENNOTTE: It's a strange ambience.

It's a strange feeling.

Between the time you take off and you reach 10,000 feet,

you know that you are in danger.

Gears up.

Gear up.

No lights.

NARRATOR: Meanwhile, the terrorist leader Abdu Abdullah

appears to have chosen his spot.

INTERPRETER: He asked us to park our cars pointing

outwards so that everybody could leave

in a different direction.

That's when I should have realized

that the bluffing was over.

NARRATOR: The journalists are now very alarmed.

They cannot leave.

They're trapped.

Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

NARRATOR: This is video shot by the terrorists themselves.

They'll deliver it to the media in Baghdad the next day.

What's that?

CONTROLS: Bank angle.

Bank angle.

We've lost green and yellow.

CONTROLS: Bank angle.

Green and yellow?

MARIO ROFAIL: We had three hydraulic systems.

They are identified by color, which one is

the green and yellow and blue.

NARRATOR: Big jets depend on hydraulic power.

Hydraulic fluid runs inside pipes throughout the aircraft.

When the pilots move the control column,

pistons push the fluid in the pipes

to climb, descend, or turn the plane.

With no hydraulics, pilots have no way

to control their flight.

The missile has exploded in the wing

where the pipes filled with hydraulic fluid

are now draining.

It's like driving a car at high speed

and suddenly losing the steering wheel.

What do we do?

What do we do?

ERIC GENNOTTE: What do we do?

What could I answer?

What could I answer to him?

It was a very, very difficult question he asked me.

STEEVE MICHIELSEN: My initial reaction

was we have to do something.

And I asked to the captain, like, what should we do?

Or any ideas or something?

And he said-- well, his initial reaction

was we have to go back.

NARRATOR: A big jet can survive with one

of the three hydraulic systems knocked out, maybe even two.

But all three, none of the controls will work.

CONTROLS: Bank angle.

Bank angle.

is good.

CONTROLS: Bank angle.

I think we hit something.

CONTROLS: Bank angle.

Bank angle.

Bank angle.

Flue is gone.

CONTROLS: Bank angle.

Bank angle.

We've lost all hydraulics.

NARRATOR: All three hydraulic systems are gone.

There's nothing left.

The life of the aircraft is now measured in minutes.

MARIO ROFAIL: That was the end of everything--

procedures, what you've been trained all these years.

And so all you needed then is to keep calm, common sense

And, of course, here's where your experience comes

to see whatever is left there.

We had nothing to come back to or read or do or follow.

CONTROLS: Bank angle.

Flight DHL is in trouble.

He's on fire and he's turning back.

Scramble the fire engines, have medevac on standby.

CONTROLS: Bank angle.

NARRATOR: The control columns have become useless.

Without the crucial hydraulic systems,

there is no way to move the controls.

ERIC GENNOTTE: When you have this kind of emergency,

the three needle showing zero and the flight

engineer saying your only totally gone,

you are terrified as well.

CONTROLS: Bank angle.

MARIO ROFAIL: It was fear.

We had no control of the aircraft,

of course, initially.

The aircraft continued to climb at that time

until about 12,000 feet.

NARRATOR: The plane has started to behave strangely.

It climbs to 12,000 feet, then suddenly starts

to dive of its own accord.

CONTROLS: Sink rate.

NARRATOR: Then it climbs again.

CONTROLS: Sink rate.

It will not fly.

CONTROLS: Sink rate.

Back, back.

CONTROLS: Sink rate.

NARRATOR: This cycle repeats itself over and over again,

like a deadly roller coaster ride.

The crew can't stop the plane's wild gyrations.

They're still airborne, but somehow

they must regain control.

ERIC GENNOTTE: And now, Eric, are you proud of yourself?

Look in each mess you are.

You know it was dangerous to come here,

and what you will do now to get out of here?

CONTROLS: Bank angle.

Bank angle.

I play with controls.

I will reduce thrust.

NARRATOR: By moving the throttles to and fro,

perhaps they can flatten out the huge dives and climbs.

NARRATOR: It's all they can think of.

ERIC GENNOTTE: And then I decided to take the challenge.

We have to come back.

NARRATOR: There is no training to fly

a plane in this condition.

CONTROLS: Bank angle.

Bank angle.

So from that time and on, all the books

and the procedures and this, they're out of the window.

We have engines.

We can use the thrust.

NARRATOR: All they have left now are the two

engines, which are undamaged.

But how do you fly and land a plane with engines alone?

No airliner has ever done it.

Certainly not this one.

In August 1985, a Japan Airlines Boeing 747

had suffered a similar catastrophe

minutes after leaving Tokyo.

FLIGHT CREW:

NARRATOR: The bulkhead of the back of a cabin burst open.

The force of the rushing air blew off most of the tail fin

and cut all the hydraulic lines.

Without hydraulic power, the pilots of the 747

were little more than passengers themselves.

A jet with 524 people on board flying over the mountains

of Central Japan was virtually helpless, swaying in the sky

like a drunken bird.

RON SCHLEEDE: It really could be considered a miracle

that the pilots were able to keep the airplane flying

for 30 minutes or more after having lost all the hydraulics

and their flight controls.

But it kept circling, and eventually worked

its way into the mountains.

And it became impossible for them to land.

There was no real alternative for them

at all except to fly as long as they

could and hope for some miracle, which never occurred.

NARRATOR: When the 747 hit a mountain,

it was the worst single crash in aviation history.

520 people died.

CONTROLS: Bank angle.

NARRATOR: Can the DHL crew succeed where

the Japanese pilots failed?

CONTROLS: Bank angle.

NARRATOR: The first task is to try to calm the wild plunging

of the aircraft.

RON SCHLEEDE: The airplane will tend

to go into what's called a phugoid in the vertical mode.

It will descend, speed up, therefore pick up more lift.

Then it would climb, pitch up and climb, it would slow down,

lose lift.

And so it would go into this and it

was very difficult for the pilots to control that.

NARRATOR: They have to do it by using engine power alone,

the only thing they have left.

They find that if they reduce engine power,

the plane's nose drops and they begin to gather speed.

If they then push the throttles forward, the nose comes up

and they start to climb.

But they have to learn precisely when to increase

and decrease power.

CONTROLS: Bank angle.

Bank angle.

NARRATOR: And there's another complication.

The damage to the left wing is creating drag on that side,

pulling them to the left in a wide circle.

STEEVE MICHIELSEN: One of the most

difficult things to master.

To keep the pitch altitude in a normal way

was already difficult enough.

And now, on top of this, we had to use asymmetrical thrust

because the airplane was banking to the left

all the time.

There was a part of the left wing which was gone.

Bank.

Bank.

NARRATOR: So they not only have to move the throttles back

and forth to flatten out the plane's roller coaster motion,

but they also have to apply more power to the left engine

to compensate for the damaged wing, which

is causing them to lose lift.

After several minutes of violent pitching up and down,

the crew manages to flatten out the flight path.

Even after we've learned how to fly it using the throttles,

we still went through--

I would say, three to four times, we went through almost

uncontrollable condition.

You know, we couldn't control the airplane.

Like, very steep dives and banks.

NARRATOR: By now, the crew realizes

they've been hit by a missile somewhere on the left wing.

Their Airbus has become the first civilian aircraft

casualty of the war.

I knew we were on fire.

That I knew it.

So my intention was to come back and land the aircraft.

And also, I was--

we were afraid, I was afraid to be shot a second time.

NARRATOR: Their fears are justified.

The terrorist leader, Abdu Abdullah,

is waiting for a second chance to finish them off.

INTERPRETER: They launched a second missile that

missed the plane this time.

And then he told everyone, let's go,

and we all left quickly.

NARRATOR: Madam Vernier-Palliez later

came under a storm of criticism for not

doing more to stop the attack, or at least leave the scene.

INTERPRETER: I think that any journalist

in the situation we were in would have

reacted exactly as we did.

We have been criticized for not having said to the group

leader when he told us he was going to fire on an aircraft,

"no sir, we're leaving now."

On the one hand, if we had said that to him,

it would have meant a bullet in the head, that's clear.

And on the other hand, right up to the last minute,

right up to the time when they fired the missile,

I didn't think they were going to do it.

I thought they were still bluffing.

While we were trying to find our way back

with our chauffeur, we saw that the plane, its left wing

was on fire.

It was now turning like this.

It was like in a film, it was unreal.

And it was only when we could see

the plane on fire that we thought of the people

on board.

And then we were scared.

NARRATOR: The crew knows nothing of the second missile.

GROUND CONTROL: Joey to one.

PILOT: did you guys say

there's an aircraft's on fire?

NARRATOR: This remarkable video was

shot with the infrared heat-sensitive camera of a US

Apache attack helicopter.

PILOT: Dragon team, we're at 5-4.

NARRATOR: Apaches routinely patrol

the area around the airport, watching out for terrorists.

GROUND CONTROL: 5-4 down.

PILOT: Roger, 5-4 is observing the aircraft inbound

under our sighting system.

He's got appears to be a fire on his far left engine.

NARRATOR: The intense heat of the fire on the Airbus

shows up as a blur on the helicopter's

heat-sensitive camera.

CREW: Roger to Lima-Lima.

GROUND CONTROL: That's Lima Lima tower.

CREW: Yes, we have a bit of problems

controlling the aircraft.

MARIO ROFAIL: There was a helicopter flying,

and he could see that the fire was not from the engine,

but it was from the left wing.

So it gave Mario the opportunity

to ask the tower again if they could still see some flames

or smoke coming from the airplane.

Could you confirm if there is smoke coming from the aircraft

or fire or anything like that?

PILOT: Tower, Dragon team at 5-4.

We still see smoke and flame coming from the left tip

of the left wing.

OK, the left wing, keep the fire and smoke up.

PILOT: That's affirmative.

Thank you.

STEEVE MICHIELSEN: We were on a heading towards the airport,

we could see the airport.

Lower the gear.

Can I take control?

No, I have control.

I have control.

Lower the gear.

NARRATOR: With no hydraulic power,

Mario has to crank open the landing gear doors

and let the wheels drop down by gravity alone.

The captain said, in fact, we have to land.

And he called for the gear down, which is quite

normal thing to go and land.

NARRATOR: But it has an unintended effect.

Lowering the landing gear has altered the entire balance

of the aircraft just when they thought they'd

figured out how to control it.

It causes the nose to point high in the air and the speed

to fall.

No, no.

No, the speed.

NARRATOR: It could easily stall and then crash.

ERIC GENNOTTE: I didn't expect that at all

and I saw the aircraft taking a pitch up.

And then the speed, decreasing, decreasing, decreasing.

And I was returning the throttle and say, no, no.

No, no.

NARRATOR: The nose has gone up.

Their speed is falling, and they're about to stall.

They have no choice but to pull back the throttles to bring

the nose back down again.

They're nearly at stall speed.

That would have been the end of it.

We would have fallen out of the sky.

PILOT 1: You have visual on this guy?

PILOT 2: No, I'm looking right in it.

He's way out there.

PILOT 1: Man.

That's gut wrenching, man.

They're up there doing everything they can.

I was afraid that maybe one wing would stall,

and this time, it's finished.

PILOT 2: I think I'd rather try to crash on a runway

than crash into the desert.

PILOT 1: Yeah, trying to land on a runway

where as you can just belly up in the desert and the sand

would probably put out any fire.

PILOT 2: Yeah.

NARRATOR: Cautiously, they managed to coax a bit

more speed from the engines.

Lowering the gear brought them to the brink of disaster,

but now, the plane is easier to control.

STEEVE MICHIELSEN: The airplane miraculously

became more stable afterwards.

That's one of the first factors which proves

how lucky we were that day.

Let's land.

Tower Lima-Lima.

GROUND CONTROL: Oscar-Oscar-Delta-Lima-Lima,

Baghdad tower, can you make approach now?

Runway is clear for landing.

NARRATOR: The Apache helicopter has been joined by others who

are powerless to do anything but provide information

to the stricken DHL plane.

PILOT 1: It looks like he won't be too high again.

PILOT 2: I'm still looking up in the flare.

Come on, buddies.

MARIO ROFAIL: You could hear other aeroplanes

talking at the same time.

PILOT: Oh crap.

And that on its own was a bit difficult.

GROUND CONTROL: Oscar-Oscar-Delta-Lima-Lima.

CREW: Could you please clear 33 left for us

as well, because I think we lost

our flight control as well.

Oscar-Oscar-Delta-Lima-Lima, runway

33 left is available as well if you need to land there.

OK, keep both runways open for us.

No more talking.

Bye.

PILOT: Help them, man.

Did you know tank 1-alpha is empty?

NARRATOR: Fuel has been steadily streaming out

of the tanks in the left wing.

Now, one of them is empty.

Bank back.

CONTROLS: Bank angle.

Yes, got it.

CONTROLS: Bank angle.

Wind is down, left wing coming up.

NARRATOR: Against all odds, they've

made it back to the airport, an incredible feat of flying.

They begin making preparations to land.

Which runway?

We use 33 right, I think.

Lima-Lima.

GROUND CONTROL: Lima-Lima, go ahead.

Could you please declare full emergency.

Yes, we will need the fire brigade, because our landing

gears might collapse as well.

GROUND CONTROL: Oscar-Lima-Lima,

all available assistance is available on the field.

Everyone is on full alert.

OK, thank you very much, and no more calls.

PILOT 1: Man, that guy's got to be pretty stressed.

PILOT 2: Rightfully so.

NARRATOR: Just on the brink of success, it begins to unravel.

STEEVE MICHIELSEN: At that time,

I realized that we were a little bit too

high to come in and land in the situation we were.

That's what I thought as well.

We were too high and too near.

- We must land. - We are too close.

We need a long final.

I mean, Steeve brought a very important point here,

and I think it was really a saver.

NARRATOR: Steeve is giving his captain

news he doesn't want to hear.

He can't land.

They are too high and too close.

If they attempt a steep descent,

they'll crash on the runway.

Eric Gennotte will have to turn around, fly away

from the airport for over 20 miles,

turn again, and come back on a long final approach,

slowly descending.

If we haven't done this 20 miles,

we would have been circling there forever until we dropped

to the sky or the wing.

You can't make it.

It's impossible.

Keep the speed up.

Keep the speed up.

I try.

I will do the best I can.

ERIC GENNOTTE: And then I realized they were right.

We have to go on long final.

NARRATOR: But for the last 13 minutes,

the wing has been on fire.

Do they have enough time?

20 miles final.

OK.

PILOT 1: He looks like he's still pretty high.

You got him in sight now?

PILOT 2: He's still got a long way to go.

PILOT 1: Yeah.

It looks like he started, like, an extremely extended final.

PILOT 2: Yeah.

And I don't think they can make it in.

NARRATOR: Time is running out.

The fire is eating up the left wing.

They're still heading away from the airport,

then they have to turn and make a 23-mile approach.

Can they land before the wing fails?

Two main structural spars give the wing its strength.

The missile has made a 16-foot-long crack

in the rear spar.

Too much stress and it will snap like a twig.

There's another danger.

Fuel is streaming out of the punctured tanks

in the left wing.

If the tanks run dry, an engine will stall and they'll crash.

We were controlling the bank and the pitch of the aeroplane

using the two engines.

So if we had lost one engine, then we couldn't do anything

with the other engine.

So the end result would have been disaster.

NARRATOR: Despite the fire, the crew's confidence is growing.

Now, they have some control over the plane.

But the prospects for a safe landing are not good.

This is the closest any commercial jet

has come to a safe landing with no hydraulics.

In 1989, in the United States, the crew of this United DC-10

lost all their controls after an engine blew up

and turbine blades shredded the hydraulic pipes.

The pilots managed to regain some control,

moving the throttles backwards and forwards

like the DHL crew.

There were 296 people on board.

But at the last minute, as they approached the small airport

of Sioux City, Iowa disaster.

CREW: No, I can't pull it off.

Feels like that's what's turning it.

OK. Yep.

Bank, bank, bank, bank left.

Bank left.

NARRATOR: In the Sioux City crash, of the 296

people on board, 111 died.

So within four years, two major airlines

had crashed because a loss of hydraulics

crippled the planes, killing 631 people.

In its investigation report on the Sioux City disaster,

the US National Transportation Safety Board

asked for urgent research to find

ways of controlling big jets that

had lost their hydraulics.

But over Baghdad, 14 years later,

the DHL crew has only their wits to help

them as they try to land.

I remember the story of the DC-10 of Sioux City

that it has been done before.

The only control we still have on the aircraft in the cockpit

was the engine.

Nothing else.

NARRATOR: The crew is now 17 miles away from the airport,

getting close to where they'll turn

in order to make their long final approach to the runway.

15.2.

16.

Now, we turn right.

Not yet.

This is where experience counts now

and you have to rely on what you know.

We were pretty sure that we were going to be able to make

it to the airport, but we were absolutely

not sure that we were going to be

able to make it to the runway.

16.5.

Now, we turn.

17 miles.

Now, we turn.

NARRATOR: The only way they can turn

is by applying more power to the left engine

to make them go right, and vice versa.

They're swinging around to the right,

trying to keep the plane steady and descend

all at the same time, using nothing but the engines.

Airport at 340, come right, now 320.

Speed?

We're 10 knots and stable, keep speed up.

Yes.

Yes.

4,000 feet.

3,500 feet.

3,200 feet.

We turn on the head.

NARRATOR: Against all their instincts,

they'll have to keep the speed up on landing

or the nose will drop and they'll crash.

They should be landing at around 185 miles per hour,

but they are coming in 60 miles an hour faster.

No one knows if the landing gear will take the strain.

As they reach 400 feet, the hot air

from the ground and strong wind blowing across their flight

path upsets all their plans.

The wind's coming from the left,

and the turbulence, we were drifting to the right.

That's where the airport building was.

It's bumpy.

NARRATOR: As the plane approaches the runway,

the nose is pointing dangerously low,

and the left wing is dropping.

CONTROLS: Sink rate.

Come on, buddy.

They're carrying too much speed.

They could over run the runway.

CONTROLS: Sink rate.

Sink rate.

Keep the speed up.

We are going left.

Yes, I increase.

CONTROLS: Sink rate. 50.

If you go to landing,

may go off the runway.

They are landing 33 left.

Fire trucks on standby, medevac on standby.

PILOT: I don't think now.

Steady.

Steady.

You are approaching the end of your life.

You realize it.

CONTROLS: Pull right.

PILOT: Come on, buddy.

Bank, OK.

PILOT 1: Oh.

It looks like one of his gears collapsed.

PILOT 2: Yeah, it did.

Half runway.

Oh no.

PILOT 1: Looks like he's in the dirt.

PILOT 2: Dirt, or did he just come off the runway?

PILOT 1: That's what's left of him.

NARRATOR: The DHL Airbus has managed

to land through an incredible feat of flying.

But their troubles are not over.

Icelandic, wow.

Confirm evac.

Evacuate?

Evacuate.

Evacuation.

Both, I know.

NARRATOR: But after getting to the ground

safely against all odds, there's another danger.

She might blow.

FIREMAN: Hey guys, don't move.

That area has unexploded ordnance.

Do not move.

What's that?

He's saying there might be bombs here.

I don't believe this.

We're coming to get you.

NARRATOR: The area is still littered

with unexploded ordnance left over

from the battle to capture the airport

from Saddam Hussein's army.

When we get to you, we're going to back up

and you got to follow in our tracks.

Now, we're going to get out of here.

Keep coming.

Keep coming.

It's not much further now.

NARRATOR: Now, for the first time,

the crew can see the damage for themselves.

They have survived the unsurvivable.

No crew has ever successfully landed

such a badly damaged airliner.

They had to learn and practice a whole new flying technique.

But the remarkable thing is, had they known it,

the technology had already been invented to save any pilot

in this desperate situation.

The DHL pilots have managed to fly and land a plane

without any flying controls.

It's the first time this has happened.

Two earlier occasions near Tokyo and Sioux City,

Iowa ended with the loss of over 600 lives.

In 1989, NASA began to investigate

ways to land crippled aircraft using only throttle controls.

Engineers and pilots came up with software that could cope

with total hydraulic failure.

It's called PCA for Propulsion Controlled Aircraft.

The PCA concept is simple.

Pilots tell the aircraft's flight

management computer what they want

to do-- turn, climb, descend.

But instead of sending those commands down hydraulic lines

to the control surfaces, the computer orders the engines

alone to do it.

To test this software, the MD-11 Of an aircraft

is landing with no hydraulics and using engine thrust alone.

The pilot is not moving the throttles,

the PCA software is doing it all for him.

Though none of the plane's normal controls were used,

the MD-11's landing was not only survivable, but very

similar to a normal landing.

One of the supporters of the PCA system

is Captain Dennis Fitch, one of the pilots

who survived the Sioux City DC-10 crash.

This is just absolutely an amazing piece of equipment.

What they have done and what they have achieved

and the success ratio that we have,

the survivability that we now have with modern aircraft

completely controlled in hydraulics to have this occur

again and have this aboard the aircraft

is a very warm feeling as a pilot.

gone.

We've lost all hydraulics.

NARRATOR: America's Federal Aviation

Administration conducted research into PCA,

but soon abandoned it.

It says the risk of losing all hydraulics

is too low to make systems like the PCA worthwhile.

DAVE HAYES: The FAA's conclusion after their studies

was that these events are so rare as to not

require the mandate of an additional system.

And of course, they did not consider the event

of, or the possibility, of a surface-to-air weapons

attack on the aircraft.

NARRATOR: The DHL A300 is the first plane in Iraq to be hit

by a surface-to-air missile.

But in recent years, the threat of

terrorist-controlled shoulder-launched

anti-aircraft missiles has been growing.

There had been roughly 30-odd incidents of commercial

aircraft being attacked by manned

portable surface-to-air missiles,

leading up to the DHL one.

NARRATOR: What makes the risk of missile attack in Iraq so

serious is that for months, nobody was guarding

the abandoned weapons stores of the Iraqi army,

leaving terrorists free to help themselves to millions

of dollars worth of arms.

INTERPRETER: I believe there are weapon

caches everywhere in Iraq.

In my opinion, they also have many missiles.

NARRATOR: There is widespread fear that these terror weapons

could soon be targeting passenger

airliners all over the world.

The US government's Department of Homeland Security

is spending over $100 million on research

to adapt military counter missile technology

for civilian airlines.

JAMES O'HALLORAN: It is inevitable today

that commercial aircraft will have

to be fitted, at some time, with laser

and infrared jamming systems.

If you look at things like the queen's flight in the UK,

the president's aircraft in the USA,

and the king of Jordan's fleet, they're all fitted.

Terrorism is with us today, and will always be with us

for the rest of our lives.

It's impossible to defeat terrorism.

But what is possible is to control

terrorism at a commercially acceptable level.

If we don't do that, then there's no future for us.

NARRATOR: But miraculously, without any of this equipment,

the DHL crew brought their plane to a successful landing.

It is the only confirmed occasion in aviation history

when a missile exploded on a large civilian airliner, which

then landed without crashing.

For Mario Rofail, it was a good note on which to retire.

MARIO ROFAIL: It was a good time to actually

say goodbye to aviation.

As you said, I've been flying for 30 years.

And clean record, even to the last minute.

We were lucky, but also, we worked.

We fight to survive.

I learned some things about life, maybe.

But I don't think it makes me a better pilot.

NARRATOR: The three DHL crew members

have received some of the highest awards

that the civilian aviation community has to offer,

in recognition of an unprecedented achievement.

STEEVE MICHIELSEN: Teamwork was absolutely the key factor

of bringing the airplane back to the ground

with all three people alive.

NARRATOR: As for what happened to the suspect

in the DHL bombing, no one can say for sure.

What is certain is that the threat of further missile

attacks on planes, both military and civilian,

is still out there.