WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.120 --> 00:00:03.359
<v Speaker 1>Picture the cold reality of the North Sea. On the

2
00:00:03.439 --> 00:00:06.879
<v Speaker 1>late afternoon of September eighth, nineteen eighty nine, you are

3
00:00:06.960 --> 00:00:11.720
<v Speaker 1>tracking an aging twin prop conveyor cruising at twenty two

4
00:00:11.800 --> 00:00:14.000
<v Speaker 1>thousand feet above the dark, icy water.

5
00:00:14.320 --> 00:00:17.079
<v Speaker 2>Right and inside the cabin, the atmosphere is, you know, electric.

6
00:00:17.320 --> 00:00:20.120
<v Speaker 2>There are fifty passengers on board, all of them winners

7
00:00:20.120 --> 00:00:21.559
<v Speaker 2>of a shipping company lottery.

8
00:00:21.920 --> 00:00:24.879
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, they're enjoying a slightly pricey dinner en route to

9
00:00:24.879 --> 00:00:28.359
<v Speaker 1>a ship christening ceremony in Hamburg. And up front, the

10
00:00:28.399 --> 00:00:31.839
<v Speaker 1>pilots are two seasoned friends, both just months away from

11
00:00:31.879 --> 00:00:34.200
<v Speaker 1>a well earned retirement, flying.

12
00:00:33.880 --> 00:00:36.479
<v Speaker 2>In smooth air, clear skies. I mean, it's the kind

13
00:00:36.520 --> 00:00:39.000
<v Speaker 2>of routine charter flight that barely registers on an air

14
00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:40.359
<v Speaker 2>traffic controller's.

15
00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:44.960
<v Speaker 1>Radar exactly until a catastrophic, just completely unexpected shock rips

16
00:00:44.960 --> 00:00:48.399
<v Speaker 1>through the airframe. The physical terror in that cabin is instantaneous.

17
00:00:48.479 --> 00:00:50.479
<v Speaker 2>The plane rolls hard, inverted and.

18
00:00:50.399 --> 00:00:53.960
<v Speaker 1>In the cockpit amidst this sudden, deafening roar of the slipstream,

19
00:00:54.119 --> 00:00:56.119
<v Speaker 1>the frantic struggle of the crew is captured and a

20
00:00:56.119 --> 00:00:57.880
<v Speaker 1>desperate plea just pull up.

21
00:00:57.840 --> 00:01:01.000
<v Speaker 2>And then the plane simply vanishes from Copenhaga radar. Fifty

22
00:01:01.039 --> 00:01:04.120
<v Speaker 2>five lives lost, scattered across a two kilometer debris field,

23
00:01:04.200 --> 00:01:05.680
<v Speaker 2>plunging into the freezing depths of.

24
00:01:05.680 --> 00:01:07.599
<v Speaker 1>The North Sea, with no distress call at all.

25
00:01:07.599 --> 00:01:11.719
<v Speaker 2>None, no mechanical warnings transmitted, just to sudden erasure from

26
00:01:11.719 --> 00:01:12.079
<v Speaker 2>the sky.

27
00:01:12.599 --> 00:01:15.799
<v Speaker 1>Well, welcome to this deep dive, today's journey. It isn't

28
00:01:15.840 --> 00:01:19.040
<v Speaker 1>just a recounting of a tragic crash. We are opening

29
00:01:19.040 --> 00:01:21.959
<v Speaker 1>the case files, looking at the torn metal, and stepping

30
00:01:22.079 --> 00:01:24.840
<v Speaker 1>right into the shoes of the investigators to solve an

31
00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:26.840
<v Speaker 1>unprecedented mystery.

32
00:01:26.439 --> 00:01:28.760
<v Speaker 2>A mystery that began in the mud at the bottom

33
00:01:28.799 --> 00:01:33.120
<v Speaker 2>of the ocean and ultimately infiltrated the supply chain of

34
00:01:33.159 --> 00:01:34.959
<v Speaker 2>the most secure airplan on Earth.

35
00:01:35.280 --> 00:01:38.560
<v Speaker 1>Right, Because when you're an investigator standing in a hangar,

36
00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:41.719
<v Speaker 1>steering in a plane that disintegrated in mid air with

37
00:01:41.840 --> 00:01:47.079
<v Speaker 1>absolute zero warning I mean, scattering debris across miles of ocean,

38
00:01:47.120 --> 00:01:49.799
<v Speaker 1>your mind immediately goes to the darkest corners.

39
00:01:49.879 --> 00:01:53.239
<v Speaker 2>Oh. Absolutely, you have to look for the most sinister explanation. First,

40
00:01:53.280 --> 00:01:55.400
<v Speaker 2>you have to rule out intentional destruction.

41
00:01:55.760 --> 00:01:58.560
<v Speaker 1>Okay, So let's unpack this by setting the historical scene.

42
00:01:58.560 --> 00:02:00.840
<v Speaker 1>Because the paranoia of the moment is really crucial. It

43
00:02:00.879 --> 00:02:03.560
<v Speaker 1>is late nineteen eighty nine. The bombing of pan Am

44
00:02:03.599 --> 00:02:06.560
<v Speaker 1>flight one O three over Lockerbee happened just the year prior.

45
00:02:06.840 --> 00:02:11.240
<v Speaker 2>Tensions are incredibly high, global aviation security is on high

46
00:02:11.240 --> 00:02:12.759
<v Speaker 2>alert exactly.

47
00:02:12.560 --> 00:02:15.520
<v Speaker 1>And then we pull the flight logs for this doomed

48
00:02:15.599 --> 00:02:21.120
<v Speaker 1>Partner conveyor and find a chilling detail. Just days before

49
00:02:21.159 --> 00:02:26.080
<v Speaker 1>this crash, the Norwegian Prime Minister gro Harlem Brentlin used

50
00:02:26.080 --> 00:02:28.800
<v Speaker 1>this exact airplane for a campaign trip.

51
00:02:28.639 --> 00:02:31.800
<v Speaker 2>Which is wild. So the immediate assumption across the intelligence

52
00:02:31.800 --> 00:02:35.479
<v Speaker 2>community and the public really was a botched assassination.

53
00:02:34.960 --> 00:02:37.879
<v Speaker 1>Attempt, like a timed explosive planted for the prime minister

54
00:02:37.960 --> 00:02:39.120
<v Speaker 1>that went off on the wrong flight.

55
00:02:39.319 --> 00:02:42.439
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's a terrifying theory. And what's fascinating here is

56
00:02:42.479 --> 00:02:45.400
<v Speaker 2>that the early medical evidence from the recovery effort actually

57
00:02:45.479 --> 00:02:47.479
<v Speaker 2>seemed to validate it because.

58
00:02:47.280 --> 00:02:49.599
<v Speaker 1>The autopsy findings were highly unusual.

59
00:02:49.319 --> 00:02:53.199
<v Speaker 2>Extremely unusual. They found these small, unexplained puncture wounds on

60
00:02:53.240 --> 00:02:57.120
<v Speaker 2>several bodies, but the most striking piece of evidence was

61
00:02:57.159 --> 00:02:59.639
<v Speaker 2>found during the autopsy of the first officer.

62
00:02:59.719 --> 00:03:01.199
<v Speaker 1>Wait, this is the part that always gets me.

63
00:03:01.360 --> 00:03:05.360
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, inside his stomach. The medical examiner found a completely unbroken,

64
00:03:05.759 --> 00:03:07.759
<v Speaker 2>sharp ended wooden toothpick.

65
00:03:07.919 --> 00:03:10.479
<v Speaker 1>Okay, let me push back on that logically for a second.

66
00:03:10.639 --> 00:03:14.159
<v Speaker 1>A swallow toothpick is strange, Yes, but a startle response

67
00:03:14.199 --> 00:03:16.000
<v Speaker 1>doesn't strictly prove a bomb went off.

68
00:03:16.159 --> 00:03:19.680
<v Speaker 2>Well, it doesn't definitively prove a bomb, no, but it

69
00:03:19.719 --> 00:03:25.439
<v Speaker 2>proves an unfathomable instantaneous shock wave. How so, think about

70
00:03:25.439 --> 00:03:29.199
<v Speaker 2>the basic physiology of the human airway. To swallow a sharp,

71
00:03:29.400 --> 00:03:32.599
<v Speaker 2>intact toothpick without chewing, and you know, without your gag

72
00:03:32.639 --> 00:03:35.560
<v Speaker 2>reflex catching it in your esophagus, your body has to

73
00:03:35.560 --> 00:03:38.439
<v Speaker 2>be subjected to an overwhelming sudden gasp.

74
00:03:38.319 --> 00:03:42.800
<v Speaker 1>Wow, like a shock so profound that your autonomic reflexes

75
00:03:42.840 --> 00:03:46.360
<v Speaker 1>are entirely overridden by sheer terror or a concussive wave.

76
00:03:46.520 --> 00:03:50.120
<v Speaker 2>Exactly. It strongly suggested a sudden explosive event.

77
00:03:50.319 --> 00:03:52.400
<v Speaker 1>But I mean, as investigators, we can't write a final

78
00:03:52.479 --> 00:03:55.400
<v Speaker 1>report based on an autonomic gas reflex or a few

79
00:03:55.439 --> 00:03:57.800
<v Speaker 1>unexplained punctures. We need hard.

80
00:03:57.599 --> 00:04:00.960
<v Speaker 2>Data, right, which means sending divers down into the freezing

81
00:04:01.199 --> 00:04:03.879
<v Speaker 2>zero visibility water of the North Sea to pull up

82
00:04:03.919 --> 00:04:06.879
<v Speaker 2>the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder, which.

83
00:04:06.719 --> 00:04:09.319
<v Speaker 1>Is where the history of this specific airplane and the

84
00:04:09.319 --> 00:04:12.919
<v Speaker 1>airline operating it. Threw a serious wrench into the investigation

85
00:04:13.080 --> 00:04:14.599
<v Speaker 1>because Partner was a company.

86
00:04:14.280 --> 00:04:16.759
<v Speaker 2>On the brink, they really were. So the divers recover

87
00:04:16.800 --> 00:04:18.800
<v Speaker 2>the boxes. We pull the tape from the CVR and

88
00:04:19.480 --> 00:04:22.279
<v Speaker 2>it is completely blank for the entire duration of the flight,

89
00:04:22.519 --> 00:04:23.279
<v Speaker 2>just dead air.

90
00:04:24.480 --> 00:04:26.759
<v Speaker 1>The audio simply cuts out the moment they throttle up

91
00:04:26.800 --> 00:04:27.319
<v Speaker 1>for takeoff.

92
00:04:27.480 --> 00:04:30.199
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and we trace that back to a faulty ten

93
00:04:30.279 --> 00:04:34.160
<v Speaker 2>year old wire modification. When the pilots applied takeoff power,

94
00:04:34.199 --> 00:04:36.720
<v Speaker 2>the electrical system was supposed to switch from the auxiliary

95
00:04:36.759 --> 00:04:38.920
<v Speaker 2>battery to the main generator, but the.

96
00:04:38.879 --> 00:04:42.680
<v Speaker 1>Switch was defective, it tripped, and the CVR just went dead.

97
00:04:42.839 --> 00:04:46.879
<v Speaker 2>Right, But the tape did capture audio while the plane

98
00:04:46.920 --> 00:04:49.920
<v Speaker 2>was sitting on the tarmac, and the recording paints a

99
00:04:49.959 --> 00:04:53.399
<v Speaker 2>really bleak picture of the airline's operational reality.

100
00:04:53.480 --> 00:04:55.560
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. The first officer literally had to step out of

101
00:04:55.600 --> 00:04:57.920
<v Speaker 1>the cockpit, pull out his own wallet and pay the

102
00:04:57.959 --> 00:04:59.439
<v Speaker 1>catering bill in cash.

103
00:04:59.279 --> 00:05:02.399
<v Speaker 2>Because the cater ers refused to release the food. Partner

104
00:05:02.519 --> 00:05:06.240
<v Speaker 2>was drowning in debt. The Norwegian Aviation authorities had actually

105
00:05:06.279 --> 00:05:09.639
<v Speaker 2>sent out a telex that very morning grounding partner flights

106
00:05:10.079 --> 00:05:11.399
<v Speaker 2>due to unpaid fees.

107
00:05:11.680 --> 00:05:14.759
<v Speaker 1>Wow, which tells us exactly what kind of culture we

108
00:05:14.800 --> 00:05:16.879
<v Speaker 1>are looking at. It's like driving a car and taping

109
00:05:16.920 --> 00:05:20.120
<v Speaker 1>over the check engine light. When money is tight, deferred

110
00:05:20.120 --> 00:05:22.120
<v Speaker 1>maintenance is a guarantee.

111
00:05:21.560 --> 00:05:23.839
<v Speaker 2>They are doing the bare minimum to keep those birds

112
00:05:23.839 --> 00:05:27.480
<v Speaker 2>in the sky. And that degraded maintenance culture bled right

113
00:05:27.519 --> 00:05:30.240
<v Speaker 2>into the FDR the flight data recorder right.

114
00:05:30.120 --> 00:05:33.600
<v Speaker 1>Because this wasn't a modern digital recorder. It was a primitive,

115
00:05:33.680 --> 00:05:37.800
<v Speaker 1>antiquated device that used mechanical marking pins to actually scratch

116
00:05:37.879 --> 00:05:40.720
<v Speaker 1>lines into a rotating school of metal foil.

117
00:05:40.600 --> 00:05:45.000
<v Speaker 2>Exactly the physical scratching of metal on metal to record altitude,

118
00:05:45.040 --> 00:05:49.600
<v Speaker 2>heading and air speed. But the device was severely malfunctioning, so.

119
00:05:49.560 --> 00:05:51.560
<v Speaker 1>It wasn't giving clean data.

120
00:05:51.199 --> 00:05:54.959
<v Speaker 2>Not at all. Instead of clean lines, it was recording bizarre,

121
00:05:55.319 --> 00:05:59.600
<v Speaker 2>erratic double lines. The stylus was bouncing scratching signals that

122
00:05:59.600 --> 00:06:01.959
<v Speaker 2>complete deletely confounded the early analysis.

123
00:06:02.040 --> 00:06:04.360
<v Speaker 1>So with both boxes failing to give a clear picture

124
00:06:04.399 --> 00:06:07.399
<v Speaker 1>of the final moments, the investigation was forced to chase

125
00:06:07.439 --> 00:06:10.959
<v Speaker 1>external variables, and honestly, there were some very compelling ones.

126
00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:13.399
<v Speaker 2>Oh definitely the military oasts.

127
00:06:13.160 --> 00:06:15.480
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, right around the time the plane fell from the sky.

128
00:06:15.639 --> 00:06:19.639
<v Speaker 1>A major NATO military exercise, Operation Sharp Spear was active

129
00:06:19.639 --> 00:06:23.439
<v Speaker 1>in the vicinity. An F sixteen fighter jet actually intercepted

130
00:06:23.480 --> 00:06:26.160
<v Speaker 1>and passed the conveyor shortly before the crash.

131
00:06:26.199 --> 00:06:29.079
<v Speaker 2>And to compound the suspicion, when the lab tested the

132
00:06:29.120 --> 00:06:32.920
<v Speaker 2>recovered torn metal, they found traces of military great explosives.

133
00:06:33.160 --> 00:06:36.319
<v Speaker 1>See that sounds like the perfect storm of circumstantial evidence

134
00:06:36.879 --> 00:06:40.839
<v Speaker 1>a bomb, a rogue missile, or a supersonic shockwave from

135
00:06:40.879 --> 00:06:42.600
<v Speaker 1>a fighter jet ripping the plane apart.

136
00:06:42.759 --> 00:06:46.160
<v Speaker 2>It does, but as an investigator you have to methodically

137
00:06:46.199 --> 00:06:49.639
<v Speaker 2>separate the signal from the noise, I mean, the explosive trace.

138
00:06:50.040 --> 00:06:54.120
<v Speaker 1>It was microscopic, right, because the North Sea is essentially

139
00:06:54.160 --> 00:06:56.480
<v Speaker 1>a graveyard for World War two sea.

140
00:06:56.319 --> 00:07:00.720
<v Speaker 2>Battles exactly, the ocean floor is littered with deteriorating munitions.

141
00:07:00.959 --> 00:07:03.959
<v Speaker 2>The plane's aluminum had simply been contaminated by the mud

142
00:07:03.959 --> 00:07:04.519
<v Speaker 2>it rested in.

143
00:07:04.639 --> 00:07:07.040
<v Speaker 1>And when we plotted the radar tracks for the F sixteen,

144
00:07:07.480 --> 00:07:10.959
<v Speaker 1>it was over one thousand feet away. That is nowhere

145
00:07:11.000 --> 00:07:13.560
<v Speaker 1>near close enough for a pressure wave to shatter a

146
00:07:13.560 --> 00:07:15.879
<v Speaker 1>commercial airframe, even an aging one.

147
00:07:16.160 --> 00:07:19.920
<v Speaker 2>So the sabotage theory of operates the military accident theory

148
00:07:19.959 --> 00:07:22.800
<v Speaker 2>of operates, and you are standing in a hangar staring

149
00:07:22.839 --> 00:07:25.519
<v Speaker 2>at a massive puzzle of torn aluminum, and you have

150
00:07:25.560 --> 00:07:28.360
<v Speaker 2>to look closer at the sheer lines of the metal itself.

151
00:07:28.439 --> 00:07:31.360
<v Speaker 1>That's when the metaler just began examining the reconstructed tail

152
00:07:31.439 --> 00:07:35.319
<v Speaker 1>section and they isolated a massive anomaly with the APU.

153
00:07:34.959 --> 00:07:36.000
<v Speaker 2>The axiliary power unit.

154
00:07:36.079 --> 00:07:39.480
<v Speaker 1>Yeah right, we know. The APU is a massive generator

155
00:07:39.560 --> 00:07:42.000
<v Speaker 1>housed in the very back of the plane and it

156
00:07:42.040 --> 00:07:45.199
<v Speaker 1>is strictly meant for ground operations to provide power before

157
00:07:45.240 --> 00:07:46.519
<v Speaker 1>the main engine spool up.

158
00:07:46.879 --> 00:07:49.839
<v Speaker 2>But the physical evidence proved this turbine was running at

159
00:07:49.879 --> 00:07:51.160
<v Speaker 2>twenty two thousand feet in.

160
00:07:51.199 --> 00:07:55.360
<v Speaker 1>Mid air because as the fuselage was breaking apart, melted

161
00:07:55.399 --> 00:07:59.040
<v Speaker 1>plastic and debris from the passenger cabin were actively sucked

162
00:07:59.040 --> 00:08:01.439
<v Speaker 1>into the spinning in take turbine of the.

163
00:08:01.439 --> 00:08:05.120
<v Speaker 2>APU, which is a huge red flag. If they were

164
00:08:05.199 --> 00:08:07.959
<v Speaker 2>running the APU in flight, they were compensating for a

165
00:08:08.040 --> 00:08:11.759
<v Speaker 2>dead main engine generator, which again perfectly aligns with the

166
00:08:11.800 --> 00:08:13.160
<v Speaker 2>airline's financial crisis.

167
00:08:13.240 --> 00:08:16.680
<v Speaker 1>Right a generator fails that morning, instead of grounding the

168
00:08:16.680 --> 00:08:20.360
<v Speaker 1>plane and losing the charter revenue, the pilots improvise. They

169
00:08:20.480 --> 00:08:24.240
<v Speaker 1>run the tail APU continuously to satisfy the legal requirement

170
00:08:24.319 --> 00:08:25.920
<v Speaker 1>for two functioning power sources.

171
00:08:26.120 --> 00:08:28.680
<v Speaker 2>It was a desperate macgiver fix. But what the pilots

172
00:08:28.759 --> 00:08:31.079
<v Speaker 2>didn't know, What they couldn't see beneath the cowling was

173
00:08:31.079 --> 00:08:33.720
<v Speaker 2>the condition of the heavy metal mount holding this APU

174
00:08:33.759 --> 00:08:34.200
<v Speaker 2>in place.

175
00:08:34.240 --> 00:08:35.279
<v Speaker 1>It was fractured, wasn't it.

176
00:08:35.440 --> 00:08:38.519
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it had been shoddily welded together with scrap iron

177
00:08:38.600 --> 00:08:39.679
<v Speaker 2>long before this flight.

178
00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:42.879
<v Speaker 1>So you have a heavy generator spinning it thousands of

179
00:08:42.960 --> 00:08:47.720
<v Speaker 1>urpms sitting on a broken mount, shuddering violently inside the

180
00:08:47.720 --> 00:08:50.440
<v Speaker 1>tail of the aircraft for the entire flight.

181
00:08:50.440 --> 00:08:54.559
<v Speaker 2>Just sending intense vibrations straight into the airframe. And this

182
00:08:54.600 --> 00:08:57.159
<v Speaker 2>connects to a really bizarre piece of evidence from a

183
00:08:57.200 --> 00:08:58.799
<v Speaker 2>Swedish military radar station.

184
00:08:58.960 --> 00:09:02.279
<v Speaker 1>Oh right, act a mystery object falling slowly from twenty

185
00:09:02.279 --> 00:09:05.679
<v Speaker 1>two thousand feet right at the exact moment the conveyor

186
00:09:05.720 --> 00:09:07.080
<v Speaker 1>started its terminal.

187
00:09:06.759 --> 00:09:10.279
<v Speaker 2>Dive exactly and looking at the reconstructed tail in the hangar,

188
00:09:10.799 --> 00:09:13.840
<v Speaker 2>investigators realized exactly what that object was. It was the

189
00:09:13.879 --> 00:09:14.759
<v Speaker 2>shroud doors.

190
00:09:15.159 --> 00:09:17.519
<v Speaker 1>Two access panels on the vertical fin of the tail

191
00:09:17.519 --> 00:09:20.720
<v Speaker 1>were missing, and the reason the Swedish radar operator could

192
00:09:20.759 --> 00:09:24.039
<v Speaker 1>track them. Is because those specific doors were lined with

193
00:09:24.080 --> 00:09:25.159
<v Speaker 1>aluminum honeycomb.

194
00:09:25.600 --> 00:09:28.879
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and to a military radar operator, a tumbling piece

195
00:09:28.919 --> 00:09:32.559
<v Speaker 2>of aluminum honeycomb creates a radar return identical to chaff,

196
00:09:32.639 --> 00:09:35.720
<v Speaker 2>you know, the metallic countermeasures fighter jets dropped to confuse

197
00:09:35.840 --> 00:09:36.639
<v Speaker 2>enemy missiles.

198
00:09:36.919 --> 00:09:40.840
<v Speaker 1>Wow. So the radar signature was unmistakable, and it proved

199
00:09:40.879 --> 00:09:44.080
<v Speaker 1>a terrifying sequence of events. The tail was vibrating with

200
00:09:44.200 --> 00:09:47.879
<v Speaker 1>such intensity that the shroud doors literally rattled loose and

201
00:09:47.960 --> 00:09:49.919
<v Speaker 1>exploded off the sides of the plane in midair.

202
00:09:50.080 --> 00:09:52.080
<v Speaker 2>But here's where we have to pause and look at

203
00:09:52.080 --> 00:09:57.600
<v Speaker 2>the physics. A vibrating APU mount is localized shaking. It

204
00:09:57.720 --> 00:10:00.519
<v Speaker 2>might rattle the doors off, sure, but it doesn't generate

205
00:10:00.639 --> 00:10:04.480
<v Speaker 2>enough structural force to completely sever an entire tail section

206
00:10:04.559 --> 00:10:05.360
<v Speaker 2>from an aircraft.

207
00:10:05.480 --> 00:10:07.480
<v Speaker 1>Right. The math didn't that up. There had to be

208
00:10:07.519 --> 00:10:11.639
<v Speaker 1>a second hidden killer, an amplifier compounding that vibration.

209
00:10:12.000 --> 00:10:13.960
<v Speaker 2>And to find that amplifier we had to go back

210
00:10:14.000 --> 00:10:17.440
<v Speaker 2>to the heavily degrinded FDR foil. We sent that bizarrely

211
00:10:17.480 --> 00:10:20.759
<v Speaker 2>scratched spool to our retired expert out in California, hoping

212
00:10:20.799 --> 00:10:22.799
<v Speaker 2>his lab could decode the erratic markings.

213
00:10:22.960 --> 00:10:25.519
<v Speaker 1>And he didn't just look at it. He unstowed hundreds

214
00:10:25.559 --> 00:10:28.200
<v Speaker 1>of hours of foil. He had to mathematically filter out

215
00:10:28.200 --> 00:10:31.240
<v Speaker 1>the bouncing of the broken stylus from the actual gravitational

216
00:10:31.279 --> 00:10:33.120
<v Speaker 1>forces acting on the airframe.

217
00:10:32.720 --> 00:10:34.559
<v Speaker 2>And when he did that, he found a pattern. The

218
00:10:34.639 --> 00:10:37.799
<v Speaker 2>data showed that this plane had been shaking violently for months,

219
00:10:38.159 --> 00:10:41.559
<v Speaker 2>but there was a brief two week window where the vibrations.

220
00:10:41.000 --> 00:10:45.480
<v Speaker 1>Completely vanished, a sudden period of perfectly smooth flight. So

221
00:10:45.559 --> 00:10:47.919
<v Speaker 1>we crossed reference to the maintenance logs to see where

222
00:10:47.919 --> 00:10:49.679
<v Speaker 1>the plane was during those two weeks.

223
00:10:49.799 --> 00:10:52.039
<v Speaker 2>It was in Canada undergoing a major overhaul.

224
00:10:52.159 --> 00:10:56.120
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and during that overhaul, mechanics inspecting the tail assembly

225
00:10:56.240 --> 00:11:00.559
<v Speaker 1>noticed something concerning. The entire tail section of this conveyor

226
00:11:00.759 --> 00:11:04.679
<v Speaker 1>is secured to the main fuselage by just four primary bolts,

227
00:11:05.039 --> 00:11:06.360
<v Speaker 1>massive bolts.

228
00:11:06.320 --> 00:11:08.519
<v Speaker 2>And the mechanics in Kennedy saw that one of those

229
00:11:08.559 --> 00:11:12.200
<v Speaker 2>bolts was heavily worn. So they replaced exactly one of

230
00:11:12.240 --> 00:11:13.320
<v Speaker 2>the four bolts.

231
00:11:13.200 --> 00:11:16.840
<v Speaker 1>And temporarily that tight new bolt absorbed the play and

232
00:11:16.879 --> 00:11:18.080
<v Speaker 1>the vibrations stopped.

233
00:11:18.279 --> 00:11:21.080
<v Speaker 2>But the critical question becomes what was wrong with the

234
00:11:21.120 --> 00:11:24.320
<v Speaker 2>other three bolts, the ones they left in the airframe right.

235
00:11:24.600 --> 00:11:26.919
<v Speaker 1>And here's where it gets really interesting. When our metal

236
00:11:26.960 --> 00:11:29.720
<v Speaker 1>are just cut cross sections of those remaining three bolts,

237
00:11:29.919 --> 00:11:33.039
<v Speaker 1>polished them and looked at the grain structure under a microscope,

238
00:11:33.399 --> 00:11:34.440
<v Speaker 1>the truth was chilling.

239
00:11:34.639 --> 00:11:37.480
<v Speaker 2>They were a counterfeit, fake bogus parts.

240
00:11:37.799 --> 00:11:41.120
<v Speaker 1>They hadn't been properly heat treated. Which let's explain why

241
00:11:41.120 --> 00:11:43.799
<v Speaker 1>that matters. Heat treating isn't just about making metal hot.

242
00:11:44.080 --> 00:11:47.279
<v Speaker 1>It's about raising the steel to a precise temperature and

243
00:11:47.320 --> 00:11:50.440
<v Speaker 1>cooling it at a specific rate to align the carbon

244
00:11:50.480 --> 00:11:51.240
<v Speaker 1>atoms right.

245
00:11:51.360 --> 00:11:54.799
<v Speaker 2>That uniform lattice is what gives an aviation bolt its

246
00:11:54.840 --> 00:11:56.279
<v Speaker 2>incredible tensile strength.

247
00:11:56.559 --> 00:12:00.720
<v Speaker 1>Exactly. By skipping that expensive step, the counter fitters created

248
00:12:00.720 --> 00:12:03.679
<v Speaker 1>bolts that looked perfect on the outside but were brittle

249
00:12:03.720 --> 00:12:06.799
<v Speaker 1>on the inside. They were only yielding about sixty percent

250
00:12:06.840 --> 00:12:07.879
<v Speaker 1>of their required strength.

251
00:12:07.960 --> 00:12:10.799
<v Speaker 2>It's like a washing machine with an unbalanced load shaking

252
00:12:10.840 --> 00:12:14.320
<v Speaker 2>itself apart. But I would upgrade that to a more

253
00:12:14.399 --> 00:12:17.200
<v Speaker 2>terrifying engineering concept. Coupled harmonics.

254
00:12:17.320 --> 00:12:19.919
<v Speaker 1>Oh, like the Tikomenaro's bridge collapse in nineteen forty.

255
00:12:20.200 --> 00:12:24.120
<v Speaker 2>Exactly, the wind hits the bridge, it starts swaying, and

256
00:12:24.159 --> 00:12:27.919
<v Speaker 2>the structural twisting captures more wind energy. Feeding the oscillation

257
00:12:28.000 --> 00:12:31.240
<v Speaker 2>until the concrete and steel simply tear themselves to ribbons.

258
00:12:31.360 --> 00:12:34.399
<v Speaker 1>Right, two independent frequencies sinking up and amplifying each other.

259
00:12:34.600 --> 00:12:36.960
<v Speaker 2>And that is exactly what happened in the dark skies

260
00:12:37.000 --> 00:12:39.919
<v Speaker 2>over the North Sea. You had the broken APU generator

261
00:12:40.039 --> 00:12:42.799
<v Speaker 2>oscillating because of its fractured mount, and then you had

262
00:12:42.840 --> 00:12:45.360
<v Speaker 2>the tail of the aircraft itself oscillating because it was

263
00:12:45.399 --> 00:12:49.559
<v Speaker 2>secured to the fuselage with weak stretching counterfeit bolts.

264
00:12:49.879 --> 00:12:52.879
<v Speaker 1>So the two frequencies hit a deadly resonance. They feed

265
00:12:52.879 --> 00:12:55.840
<v Speaker 1>off each other, and the entire tail section begins to

266
00:12:55.879 --> 00:12:57.519
<v Speaker 1>physically sway back and forth.

267
00:12:57.639 --> 00:13:00.840
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and as the tail twists out of its suctual alignment,

268
00:13:01.159 --> 00:13:04.559
<v Speaker 2>it physically pulls on the mechanical control cables running to

269
00:13:04.600 --> 00:13:05.080
<v Speaker 2>the rudder.

270
00:13:05.240 --> 00:13:05.799
<v Speaker 1>Oh wow.

271
00:13:05.879 --> 00:13:09.720
<v Speaker 2>The oscillation introduces slack on one side and extreme tension

272
00:13:09.759 --> 00:13:12.279
<v Speaker 2>on the other, forcing the rudder to jam hard to

273
00:13:12.320 --> 00:13:14.519
<v Speaker 2>the left without any input from the pilots.

274
00:13:14.600 --> 00:13:17.720
<v Speaker 1>And the aerodynamic forces of a fully deflected rudder at

275
00:13:17.799 --> 00:13:22.159
<v Speaker 1>cruising speed are just overwhelming. The planet aggressively rolls, the

276
00:13:22.159 --> 00:13:25.399
<v Speaker 1>structural limits are vastly exceeded, and the entire tail section

277
00:13:25.679 --> 00:13:27.720
<v Speaker 1>simply disintegrates into the freezing air.

278
00:13:27.919 --> 00:13:31.000
<v Speaker 2>It wasn't a bomb, it wasn't a military interception. It

279
00:13:31.080 --> 00:13:35.080
<v Speaker 2>was three fake bolts, a broken generator, and a desperate crew.

280
00:13:35.399 --> 00:13:38.240
<v Speaker 1>But solving the crash of Flight three ninety four didn't

281
00:13:38.279 --> 00:13:40.919
<v Speaker 1>just close a case file in Norway. It ripped the

282
00:13:40.960 --> 00:13:45.120
<v Speaker 1>lid off an entirely unregulated global black market, terrifying the

283
00:13:45.200 --> 00:13:46.360
<v Speaker 1>highest levels of government.

284
00:13:46.519 --> 00:13:49.159
<v Speaker 2>Let's set the economic stakes here, because if a bankrupt

285
00:13:49.159 --> 00:13:52.919
<v Speaker 2>Norwegian charter airline was buying fake parts, the entire industry

286
00:13:53.000 --> 00:13:53.600
<v Speaker 2>was vulnerable.

287
00:13:53.759 --> 00:13:56.399
<v Speaker 1>Right. The spare parts business for commercial aviation is a

288
00:13:56.480 --> 00:14:00.639
<v Speaker 1>forty five billion dollar industry. A single Autheni indicated tail

289
00:14:00.720 --> 00:14:04.559
<v Speaker 1>bowl forged, heat treated, and certified, costs about two hundred

290
00:14:04.559 --> 00:14:05.840
<v Speaker 1>and fifty dollars, and a fake.

291
00:14:05.720 --> 00:14:08.759
<v Speaker 2>One from a shadowy broker costs thirty bucks. For an

292
00:14:08.759 --> 00:14:11.679
<v Speaker 2>airline like partner struggling to pay for sandwiches, that is

293
00:14:11.679 --> 00:14:12.879
<v Speaker 2>an irresistible bargain.

294
00:14:13.039 --> 00:14:16.200
<v Speaker 1>So Mary Chiavo from the Department of Transportation launched a

295
00:14:16.440 --> 00:14:19.279
<v Speaker 1>massive sweeping hotte in the wake of this crash, and

296
00:14:19.320 --> 00:14:21.000
<v Speaker 1>the numbers they uncovered were staggering.

297
00:14:21.080 --> 00:14:24.759
<v Speaker 2>They really were. When her investigators audited the FAA's own

298
00:14:24.799 --> 00:14:27.960
<v Speaker 2>internal parts bins the supplies used by the agency tasked

299
00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:31.279
<v Speaker 2>with regulating safety. They found that thirty nine percent of

300
00:14:31.279 --> 00:14:33.000
<v Speaker 2>the inventory was bogus.

301
00:14:32.679 --> 00:14:35.159
<v Speaker 1>Thirty nine percent inside the FAA's own bins.

302
00:14:35.440 --> 00:14:38.639
<v Speaker 2>That is wild, and it gets worse. If a commercial

303
00:14:38.679 --> 00:14:42.279
<v Speaker 2>airline bought a replacement part from an independent broker rather

304
00:14:42.320 --> 00:14:45.559
<v Speaker 2>than the original manufacturer, ninety five percent of those parts

305
00:14:45.600 --> 00:14:46.240
<v Speaker 2>were counterfeit.

306
00:14:46.440 --> 00:14:49.559
<v Speaker 1>Because the barrier to entry for this crime was virtually

307
00:14:49.639 --> 00:14:53.519
<v Speaker 1>non existent. You didn't need a sophisticated factory, You needed

308
00:14:53.519 --> 00:14:55.519
<v Speaker 1>a fax machine and a telephone.

309
00:14:55.639 --> 00:14:59.600
<v Speaker 2>Right. Criminal syndicates were pulling fatigued, time expired parts out

310
00:14:59.600 --> 00:15:03.440
<v Speaker 2>of de Dezzard aircraft boneyards, polishing them up, and forging

311
00:15:03.480 --> 00:15:07.279
<v Speaker 2>the FAA yellow tags that certified them as newly overhauled

312
00:15:07.279 --> 00:15:08.679
<v Speaker 2>and safe, meaning.

313
00:15:08.480 --> 00:15:11.600
<v Speaker 1>The paper certification tag was literally worth more than the

314
00:15:11.639 --> 00:15:13.039
<v Speaker 1>metal part it was attached.

315
00:15:12.720 --> 00:15:15.399
<v Speaker 2>To, exactly. And if we connect this to the bigger picture,

316
00:15:15.799 --> 00:15:19.080
<v Speaker 2>the ultimate shock of this investigation wasn't just that marginal

317
00:15:19.159 --> 00:15:23.039
<v Speaker 2>charter operators were at risk. Investigators kept tracking these bogus

318
00:15:23.080 --> 00:15:26.919
<v Speaker 2>brokers and they found contaminated counterfeit parts on the one

319
00:15:27.000 --> 00:15:30.240
<v Speaker 2>airplane universally considered to be the most secure fortress in

320
00:15:30.279 --> 00:15:30.600
<v Speaker 2>the sky.

321
00:15:30.679 --> 00:15:33.519
<v Speaker 1>The Air Force one the President's plane was flying with

322
00:15:33.600 --> 00:15:34.360
<v Speaker 1>bogus parts.

323
00:15:34.559 --> 00:15:38.679
<v Speaker 2>The black market had thoroughly infiltrated the highest, most airtight

324
00:15:38.720 --> 00:15:40.320
<v Speaker 2>supply chain in the world.

325
00:15:40.559 --> 00:15:44.159
<v Speaker 1>It's a sobering realization, but the fallout from this crash

326
00:15:44.639 --> 00:15:48.360
<v Speaker 1>really changed aviation law. It triggered a relentless wave of

327
00:15:48.480 --> 00:15:50.440
<v Speaker 1>global arrests and sting operations.

328
00:15:50.519 --> 00:15:54.600
<v Speaker 2>The FAA completely overhauled things, making it a severe criminal

329
00:15:54.600 --> 00:15:58.720
<v Speaker 2>offense to traffic and unapproved parts. Maintenance crews were retrained

330
00:15:58.759 --> 00:16:01.320
<v Speaker 2>to spot the visual que of a fake and to

331
00:16:01.360 --> 00:16:03.720
<v Speaker 2>smell a forged piece of paperwork.

332
00:16:03.320 --> 00:16:06.240
<v Speaker 1>And the proof is in a historical data. In the

333
00:16:06.279 --> 00:16:10.000
<v Speaker 1>two decades following the Partner investigation, not a single fatal

334
00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:12.600
<v Speaker 1>commercial crash was attributed to bogus parts.

335
00:16:12.919 --> 00:16:16.240
<v Speaker 2>It forced an entire global industry to wake up, audit

336
00:16:16.279 --> 00:16:17.679
<v Speaker 2>their shelves, and clean house.

337
00:16:18.080 --> 00:16:21.639
<v Speaker 1>So let's synthesize the incredible chain of events we just analyzed.

338
00:16:22.240 --> 00:16:26.720
<v Speaker 1>An airline struggling with insurmountable debt, a main engine generator

339
00:16:26.799 --> 00:16:30.679
<v Speaker 1>failing on a chilly September morning, an improvised desperate decision

340
00:16:30.720 --> 00:16:33.000
<v Speaker 1>by a pilot just trying to get its passengers to.

341
00:16:32.919 --> 00:16:36.279
<v Speaker 2>Hamburg and three thirty dollars counterfeit bolts hiding inside the

342
00:16:36.320 --> 00:16:36.919
<v Speaker 2>tail right.

343
00:16:37.320 --> 00:16:40.000
<v Speaker 1>Separately, any one of those things is an operational headache,

344
00:16:40.159 --> 00:16:43.360
<v Speaker 1>but together they compounded into a lethal invisible force over

345
00:16:43.360 --> 00:16:44.399
<v Speaker 1>the North Sea.

346
00:16:44.159 --> 00:16:46.799
<v Speaker 2>A textbook cascade of hidden deferred failures.

347
00:16:47.039 --> 00:16:50.240
<v Speaker 1>You know there are over six million individual parts on

348
00:16:50.320 --> 00:16:53.759
<v Speaker 1>a Boeing seven forty seven six million. The next time

349
00:16:53.799 --> 00:16:56.159
<v Speaker 1>you settle into your seat for a flight, buckle your

350
00:16:56.200 --> 00:16:59.399
<v Speaker 1>seatbelt and hear the engine spool up. Think about the

351
00:16:59.440 --> 00:17:02.320
<v Speaker 1>immense invisible supply chain keeping you in the sky.

352
00:17:02.679 --> 00:17:06.400
<v Speaker 2>It is an absolute mechanical miracle, but it rests entirely

353
00:17:06.440 --> 00:17:09.559
<v Speaker 2>on a foundation of trust. Trust in the metallurgy, trust

354
00:17:09.559 --> 00:17:12.359
<v Speaker 2>in the paperwork exactly, And this raises an important question,

355
00:17:12.400 --> 00:17:14.759
<v Speaker 2>one that lingers long after we close the case files.

356
00:17:15.599 --> 00:17:19.000
<v Speaker 2>As modern aviation technology advances, as the airframes we fly

357
00:17:19.119 --> 00:17:21.559
<v Speaker 2>on get older and are sold to secondary markets, and

358
00:17:21.599 --> 00:17:24.319
<v Speaker 2>as our global supply chains become even more obscured by

359
00:17:24.319 --> 00:17:27.960
<v Speaker 2>digital marketplaces, how much of our everyday safety in our cars,

360
00:17:28.000 --> 00:17:30.920
<v Speaker 2>our trains, and our planes still entirely relies on the

361
00:17:30.960 --> 00:17:33.279
<v Speaker 2>hidden integrity of a single cheap bolt