WEBVTT - Thinking Sideways: Crash of South African Airlines flight 295 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:04.080 Thinking Sideways is not brought to you by North Korea. Instead, 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.280 it is supported by the generous contributions of people like you, 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:11.639 our listeners on Patreon. Visit patreon dot com slash thinking 0:00:11.680 --> 0:00:28.160 sideways to learn more Thinking Sideways. I don't just stories 0:00:28.200 --> 0:00:33.680 of things we simply don't know the answer too. Hey everybody, 0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:37.320 and welcome again to another episode of Thinking Sideways. I 0:00:37.400 --> 0:00:41.199 am Steve, of course, is always joined by Devin and 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:44.520 Joe and Devin to figure out who was who. Devin, 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:46.080 by the way, spelled with an eye. And I know 0:00:47.800 --> 0:00:49.159 I think from now I know whenever you see your 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:52.479 name should be answer me Devin with an eye. What 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:55.600 about the silent you? Ye? That that always throws people 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:58.880 off to the silent pls. Yeah, there's that part. Yeah. 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:00.760 I just don't like people to know how how to 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:05.319 spell my name. Uh well, once again we have a 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:08.839 mystery for you. This was, of course a listener suggestion 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:12.039 that this was sent in by Ash Way way long ago. 0:01:14.880 --> 0:01:18.080 Oh I hope Ash from England is still listening. She's 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:21.120 still listening. Yell hey Ash, if you're still listening, to 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:26.360 send us an email or something. We're all through your suggestions. 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:32.640 That's what we're gonna talk about today, is what caused 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:36.920 the crash of South African Airways flight. I thought the 0:01:36.920 --> 0:01:41.720 answer to that gravity, I guess in a way that's true. Yeah, 0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:45.200 he does have a really good all right, So if 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:49.600 you want to find our links, it's just like fifty 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:55.040 minutes of silence after this. Yeah, you're welcome. Really should 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:58.480 for April Fools, But no, I found this one on 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:00.160 the list. It's been a long time since we done 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:02.280 an airplane mystery, so I decided we should do one 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:06.520 that's not true airplane mystery last week? What do we 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:10.120 do last week? You're right, you know what I did 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:13.760 realize also, is I'm an idiot. As you two know. 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:15.800 I went on vacation and I did all of my 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:19.359 research for this prior to going on vacation, which required 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:22.000 me to be on an airplane for oh, I don't know, 0:02:22.200 --> 0:02:25.520 fifteen hours round trip. So while you're on that airplane, 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:30.359 were you thinking about fires? And I was ignoring thing? Yeah, 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:32.519 I had to. I finally I really got it through 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:34.720 my head. I was like, wait, this is the same 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:37.519 thing you do when you swim in the ocean. There 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:40.720 are sharks in the ocean. There's just aren't any sharks 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:44.280 there at the moment, so you're fine. Who was on 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:47.079 an airplane after having done some research for this episode, 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:49.360 and um, I was sitting in the window seat and 0:02:49.400 --> 0:02:50.960 I turned to my boyfriend and I said, does it 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:54.120 make you nervous that there's something in between those window panes? 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:56.240 Because there was like a piece of junk in there. 0:02:56.560 --> 0:02:59.760 I was like, how did it get in there? Then 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:05.040 it makes me nervous. Yeah, you know. I was doing 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:07.799 a little research for this and various random googles to 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:10.720 try to find stuff out, and I found all these 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:13.440 advisories out there from like the f A and stuff 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:15.920 like that. It's like, oh, you know, you gotta go 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:17.480 like this particular one. I was like, I was looking 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:20.280 into oxygen generators and it's like, oh, you've gotta go 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:23.520 visually inspect every oxygen generator and every seven forty seven 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:26.040 and the entire fleet, you know, visually inspected. And we 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:29.280 know that doesn't actually happen, we have probably not, but apparently, yeah, 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:32.640 apparently defective ones out there. So it's like, and you know, 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:34.800 something like the seven forty seven is such a huge, 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:37.960 complex machine, so many things to go wrong. Yeah, that 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:39.600 I just don't think about it as we're going to 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:43.000 talk about. Yes, just one second, we are. So let's 0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:48.600 let's get back to s A A flight, to this flight, 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:52.600 as we've already sort of given away, went down. It 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:58.120 went down, and it killed all passengers and nineteen crew members. 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:02.040 And then, of course, because it's a international event when 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:08.560 an airplane goes down, there was a giant investigation which spawned. 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:10.600 There was a whole bunch of theories that spawned out 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:14.960 before the investigation was even started, and even more that 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:19.560 came out after that. That sounds vaguely familiar, yes, really does. 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:23.640 But let's first let's talk about the plane itself. South 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:28.320 African Airways flight was a Boeing seven four seven DASH 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:32.160 two four four B comby. Uh. The name of the 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:36.040 plane was the Helderberg, which, yeah, I didn't know. I 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:39.159 don't know that every airline names its airplanes. I don't 0:04:39.160 --> 0:04:42.760 think they do, but apparently Essay does. Yeah. I found 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:44.760 out it's actually kind of a common thing, which was 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:47.039 surprising to me. So that was the actual name of 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:49.640 the plane. Yes, that's what they named the plane. Why 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:54.120 did they name it Fifi because that's just not cool enough. 0:04:54.160 --> 0:05:00.240 Maybe the other ones were was already taken. Okay. The 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:03.440 registration for the plane was z S dash S a 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:08.160 S serial number two to one one. So we are 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:14.160 going to start our story on the November. The aircraft 0:05:14.440 --> 0:05:19.279 is in shang Kai check International Airport, which is in Taipei, Taiwan. 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:25.280 The flight was scheduled to go from Taipei to Johannesburg. 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:32.280 Johannesburg and Johannesburg. I've heard it both ways. I share Johannesburg. 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:36.280 So this is a long flight over a long stretch 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:40.720 of water. It was expected to make one stop and 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:44.200 that was gonna be on the island of Mauritius, which 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:47.760 is in the Indian Ocean. It's five hundred miles away 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:53.160 from Madagascar, which is eight hundred kilometers. So it's everything 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:56.880 seems normal. The planes delayed, they can't take off on schedule. 0:05:57.000 --> 0:05:59.440 They're delayed an hour and a half because of thunderstorms. 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:05.600 While they're held on the tarmac, the local customs decides 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:10.479 to run a surprise inspection check out the cargo. Now 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:13.479 do you know, was that something they just decided to 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:15.320 do a lot on that day or was this an 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:19.120 isolated incident. I never found anything that said other than 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:21.560 it was just pay you're here, we might as well 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:23.960 check you out just because we can. Yeah. I think 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:26.640 that probably was it, since especially since they were just 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:28.440 sort of sitting around for an extra hour and a half, 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:30.599 so why not do a little surprise and specially so 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:32.360 I just but I was just wondering if they were 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:34.880 you know, presumably there were other planes that were also 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:37.960 delayed for a while. Yeah, I think this is just 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:40.200 luck of the draw. It could be luck of the drug. 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:42.599 It could actually be because they were South Africa, and 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:44.479 then because there was an embargo, they said, you know, 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:47.240 these guys have a motive to smuggle stuff. That's true, yea, 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:49.400 So maybe that was it too. It is it is 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:54.479 in uhn apartheid, it's still a thing, still not a 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:58.400 very popular country South Africa. So they get checked and 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:01.880 lo and behold, everything that's on the manifest is accounted for. 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:05.480 There's nothing out of place. So they're hunky dory and 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:08.479 they go ahead and tell them that when they're able 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:12.520 to leave, they're welcome to leave. We should stop here, though, 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:15.760 because there is an important bit of this, which is 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:20.400 when I described the plane, I had mentioned that it 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:24.360 was a seven four seven to four four b Colmby. 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:30.920 Ye that it's for combination. Oh, it doesn't, It really doesn't. 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:34.520 It's something that some airlines do that can work in 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:37.880 their favor, especially in this situation. What it is, so 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:39.920 you've got the main deck of a plane, and usually 0:07:39.920 --> 0:07:42.880 it's full of seats, except that if you're running a 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:47.600 route that doesn't normally book an entire plane, this is 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:50.160 a great plane to have because it doesn't have seats 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:52.640 in the rear portion of the plane, and you can 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:55.920 remove or add back seats as you need them, and 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:59.680 the bulkhead and the galley move forward and back to 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:04.080 screen that off from your passengers. So the comby this 0:08:04.160 --> 0:08:07.320 particular one could hold anywhere from six to twelve pallets, 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:10.560 and at this time the back in the back Okay, yeah, 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:12.320 so you know we're normally the bathrooms are in the 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:15.520 back of the plane. That area it had at this 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:19.160 time it had six pallets back there, so smaller configuration, 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:22.240 but it's a yeah, it's a pretty handy idea. Actually, 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:27.040 Bowing made a similar version of the seven Also, it 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:29.120 was convertible. You could pull out the seats and have 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:33.240 cargo instead. It's are fully adjustable. If you've been on 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:35.959 an airplane recently, and you look down where your seat attaches. 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:40.720 It attaches to a track. Seats are completely movable, because 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:43.520 that's how they've eliminated the knee room. They just have 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:46.600 to fight them up. They just push them all back 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:49.520 to back and then pull them about an inch exactly, 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:53.680 and they're like, that's fine, that's fine, you're comfortable. Have 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:55.240 you have you seen some of the new seating. There 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:57.360 was a proposed seating arrangement that came out not too 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:00.160 long ago, like six months ago. I think we posted this. 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:02.960 That's the one where you're sitting. You're sitting and then 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:05.760 there's a guy that's like half a level up from you, 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:08.280 facing you, and your sort of faces in his cross 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:13.080 You talk about, yeah, yeah, we get back even where 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:16.040 people on the planes, Yeah, you have to upgrade to 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:19.440 the area. They's got two more inches. So you can't 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:22.160 just go ahead and say I'll sit on the emergency 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:24.600 aisle because I'm a good guy. You know, you have 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:26.760 to pay for that, because the emergency gets more roo. Yeah. 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:30.000 Actually they on the flight I was just on um simultaneously. 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:33.160 It was like five times as much to reserve the 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:35.480 seats for the emergency row, which is kind of like, 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:37.840 why would you do that? Why would you want? You know? Okay, 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:44.000 really and then um, the trade tables. My phone is 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:48.120 actually bigger than the like actually like like I put 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:50.599 my phone on it and it was too Yeah, it 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:54.880 was too deep for the That's the state of the 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:58.800 airline travel in America everywhere. But I guess it's benefit 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:01.280 you're since I kind of flap. The last was still 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:03.640 Los Angeles, and I was I would seated on the 0:10:03.679 --> 0:10:06.520 emergency island and they didn't charge me extra and they 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:12.839 do now. But anyway, we're off track. Let's get back 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:15.320 to the Combi. Okay. So here's the thing is that 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:18.520 we're talking about the fact that it's got that area 0:10:18.520 --> 0:10:21.120 in the rear that they put they can put cargo, 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:26.200 and you know, that's advantageous for slow roots. This route 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:29.440 was and a lot of roots actually for South African 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:31.600 airways were kind of bad at the time because, as 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:35.679 we said, it was apartheid. Everybody hated them, well, a 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:38.679 lot of countries hated them. There was embargoes and one 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:41.600 of the things that countries would do is they would say, hey, 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:45.439 you can't fly through our airspace. Yeah, so let's give 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:48.120 an example. Let's say, you're gonna go from what is it, 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:51.760 it's Cape Cape Town, and you're gonna go to London. 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:54.160 Now the simple answer is to fly in a straight 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:58.120 line essentially London, but you can't do that. They had 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:02.640 to fly over the ocean around the entire continent and 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:05.160 then go to England. So it was a huge damper 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:09.120 on business. So good if you wanted to fly from 0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:10.800 Cape Town to Jerusalem, you had to fly out a 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:14.679 circle and then then then like say go to maybe Paris, 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:17.120 maybe Athens and then on Israel, that kind of thing. 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:20.240 But yeah, it was definitely long way around. Yeah, no, 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:22.480 so it was. It was not a good thing. And 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:24.320 they actually had two of these planes, so this was 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:27.600 one of the two that they had at Combies. So 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:30.440 they had it in that configuration where there was less 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:32.560 seating and there was you said, there were twelve palates 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:34.480 in the back. Six to twelve is what it was 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:37.920 capable of carrying. This flight had six flight takes off. 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:42.439 Everything appears normal, really, everything went fine for about the 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:47.640 first night and a half hours. Really it was I 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:50.040 think it was supposed to take eleven hours to get 0:11:50.080 --> 0:11:53.240 to get to Mauritius and then they were going to 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:58.559 bounce on from there, So it's a long, long flight. Yeah. 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:00.800 The thing that I didn't realized, and I don't know 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:02.880 that a lot of people realize, is that planes are 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:07.439 constantly checking in at way points. And as they were 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:09.160 doing their flight, and they were checking in at every 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:13.360 way point, everything is fine, um, right up until about 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:17.400 the nine and a half hour mark. At eight pm UTC, 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:22.960 which is Universal Time Coordinated, which equates to from Uritius. 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:27.559 It was three am in the morning local time. The 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:31.560 flight contacted the control tower and they said that they 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:34.520 had smoke on board and that they were descending per 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:39.840 their guidelines to four thousand feet. We know this because 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:42.520 of the voice data recorder that was on the plane 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:46.760 and that was eventually found, Yes, and also we have 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:50.160 the tapes from the control tower that they were speaking 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:55.840 to UM. In the conversation, the flight requests and is 0:12:55.880 --> 0:13:00.559 granted full emergency landing status, which means where do you 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:03.160 want to land, pick your runway, we'll give it to you. 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:07.680 And so they did that. Then they asked where they were. 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:10.160 And this is a weird thing is that there's a 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:14.000 bit of a mix up in the communication because the 0:13:14.040 --> 0:13:16.400 signal wasn't all that great the audio was pretty poor, 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:21.040 but the flight when ass said that they were sixty 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:25.400 five miles now the tower, well the tower took that 0:13:25.440 --> 0:13:28.400 to me, and they were sixty five miles out from 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:33.600 the tower instead. It turns out what the what the 0:13:33.679 --> 0:13:36.160 guys on the plane were saying is that they were 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:39.280 sixty five miles away from a way point. And that 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:42.360 way point is I'm just gonna spell it because I 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:49.800 can't even pronounce it X A G A L. Maybe 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:52.080 so they had so they had passed that way point 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:55.880 sixty five miles ago was what it was, or they 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:58.760 were sixty five miles away from even hitting that way point. 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:02.040 Do you know? I don't. I'm never quite sure, because 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:04.400 I can if it's worded this way there it made it, 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:06.400 you don't. I don't know. All I know is that 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:10.199 it turns out they were actually hud miles away from 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:13.560 the actual airport, so they were way farther out to 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:16.719 see than anybody expected them to be, which complicated the 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:19.120 search and rescue a little bit. So, like I said, 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:23.640 they were granted full emergency status. There's a brief communication 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:28.400 and then communication goes silent thirty six minutes after the 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:32.640 last word. The last word you know it. It wasn't 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:35.360 anything mysterious. It was they were having their conversation and 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:38.160 then it just kind of petered off. I thought it 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:40.320 was that, you know, the tower had said, okay, so 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:42.720 where do you want to land? No, they confirmed where 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:45.320 they wanted to land. I remember that they conferred which 0:14:45.400 --> 0:14:48.280 runway they wanted and then after that it just kind 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:51.120 of dropped. And it didn't when I read the transcript, 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:53.280 it didn't seem as if it cut off in the 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:56.520 middle of anything. It just kind of stopped. You got 0:14:56.600 --> 0:14:59.480 a fire on board that I'm gonna go deal with 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:02.840 this other I'm gonna go deal with this thing. I'll 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:04.560 be back. Well, you know, you read these things. They 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:06.960 got to have the sign stamps. I've read other transcripts 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:09.360 of these things, and you know, it's it's not like 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:12.520 they're constantly talking. There's that they're long pauses while they're 0:15:12.560 --> 0:15:14.720 going about doing things like flying the plane, going to 0:15:14.760 --> 0:15:18.160 the bathroom, getting a fresh beer, you know, and uh 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:20.840 and so yeah, that wasn't They weren't chopped off. But 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:23.920 there was an interesting thing that the pilot said though, 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:28.040 which was close the bloody door, and that was that 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:30.400 was because somebody came into the cockpit. I that's what 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:32.880 I was assuming. At first, I thought, well, as you're 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:36.800 talking about the door between the passenger compartments and the hold, 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:39.320 and I realized, now, that's way far back. It can't 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:42.240 possibly be that. So it's not an expression of alarm. 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:46.640 I wouldn't. No, I would think it would. I mean, 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:49.840 correct me if I'm wrong. But it's my impression that 0:15:50.240 --> 0:15:54.080 the passenger compartment and the pilot area cockpit, that's the 0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:57.000 word I'm looking for, that they're totally sat once you 0:15:57.080 --> 0:16:01.080 close and secure that door. It's like totally separate, isn't 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:04.040 it like the air systems everything. No. Not, At the time, 0:16:04.600 --> 0:16:10.360 it wasn't. It wasn't an airtight super confort pretty airtight, right, 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:12.080 I mean it had to steal around it. It may 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:14.280 not have been totally type, but like a door with 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:20.880 the gaps, oxygen and gases would come into the cockpits still, 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:24.120 so it wasn't completely sealed off. But mostly it was 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:26.720 to stop the smoke. I'm pretty sure from coming in. 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:29.280 Open the door, a bunch of black smoke rolls in. 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:34.600 Shut the freaking door, you're I can't, I can't see that. Yeah, 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:37.280 the I think they had the one difference between the 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:40.920 main passenger compartment and the cockpit is that you've got 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:43.520 your little oxygen masks, the one that drops down over head, 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:46.560 which is good for about twelve minutes. And then those 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:49.080 guys have the full on apparatus so they can go 0:16:49.160 --> 0:16:52.440 for a long time, which is important. Oh yeah, obviously 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:54.480 they should have they should have the better one. Yes, 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:56.880 they don't need they don't need the one that where 0:16:56.880 --> 0:16:59.280 you gotta straighten the tube that you see the Steward 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:04.280 of Steward is doing. You know, they need something much better. Yeah, um, 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:08.080 so back to our story here though. Thirty six minutes 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:13.360 after their last contact, the tower alerts, well the world, 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:19.679 They tell everybody, hey disappeared, lost them. Every country that 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:23.280 had ships or aircraft in the area go looking. But 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:29.280 of course they they're looking, right, So that's it takes 0:17:29.320 --> 0:17:32.560 twelve hours before the first bits of debris are found, 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:37.960 and that debris is oil slicks. There's semi buoyant things 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:42.879 like I'm guessing seats or vests and seat cushions that 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:46.320 can be used for flotation devices. And there was a 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:49.280 life after two. And also you know those inflatable slides 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:52.840 come down the un One of those I think, yeah, 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:57.040 and eight bodies. And as soon as they found the 0:17:57.080 --> 0:18:00.200 bodies and they examine them, based on the extent of 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:03.239 damage that was done to the bodies, they knew that 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:06.040 the plane had gone down and it was catastrophic and 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:08.679 all hands were lost. Well, I mean, it wasn't an 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:11.439 apparent before that. I'm sure that it was, but you 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:13.800 know how these things, but this is our final we 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:16.119 we can't. We can't hold out hope anymore, we know. 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:19.600 But it's also weird, right because if you find the 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:23.000 like the security what, oh my god, cockpit no, no, no, 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:27.360 the flotation rap things, if you find those out right, 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:30.320 you you can maybe think, well, maybe some people survived 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:33.680 and deployed that, or maybe it was so catastrophic that 0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:38.400 bounced out, or are just automatically the slides, for example, automatically. 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:41.440 So that would be the question, right, is Like, based 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:47.000 on examining the bodies, you could say, oh, yeah, everybody 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:50.720 died on impact. I'm guessing the extent of damage made 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:52.919 it quite odd. That would be my guess. Yeah, But 0:18:53.000 --> 0:18:55.399 that'd bey there would be a question, right is that 0:18:55.840 --> 0:19:00.000 it could be? Yeah. Now, of course, with any accident 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:05.480 of this magnitude, there is a huge formal investigation takes 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:08.639 a while because of course, first order of business is 0:19:08.680 --> 0:19:13.400 to find the wreckage. They eventually do. In that record, 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:17.680 that wreckage is found to be five thousand meters down 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:21.000 or sixteen thousand feet kind of far down there. That's 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:26.159 really far deeper than the Titanic. Yeah, yeah, way down there. Um. 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:28.160 And it's the only way they got there was with 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:31.399 a r o V the little remote operated vehicles, a 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:34.800 little submersibles. It's the only way. The Jackson Peter Jackson, 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:38.679 George Lucas, which is the one talking about, um, who 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:44.480 did Titanic. No, it doesn't matter, okay, James Cameron, Yeah, 0:19:44.480 --> 0:19:49.080 the one of the other three. Yeah. Yeah, So this 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:52.280 isn't And this is an object of contention because I 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:56.200 have read incredible sources that were there were two debris 0:19:56.280 --> 0:19:59.720 fields instead of three. Yeah, because I've read three. Most 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:02.120 play say, is that I've read about it. Yeah, I've 0:20:02.119 --> 0:20:04.280 read I've read another places that there were only two 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:08.040 debris fields. Well, what we're talking about here, for everybody 0:20:08.040 --> 0:20:10.560 who hasn't done the reading on it is the debris 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:14.880 fields are where most of the stuff from plane settles 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:18.560 on the bottom, and there were debris fields whether it's 0:20:18.600 --> 0:20:21.600 two or three and they were anywhere from one and 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:24.560 a half to two and a half kilometers apart. Is 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:27.320 that a typical as far as we know? I mean, 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:31.080 things that hit the water at great speed tend to 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:34.639 break up, and then those individual chunks tend to separate 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:36.679 and drift away from each other. But not so much 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:39.200 because tides and stuff, right, I mean, well there's currents 0:20:39.200 --> 0:20:43.240 and whatnot. I mean two thousand thousand meters, it's not 0:20:43.400 --> 0:20:45.600 actually all that far when you think about how far 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:48.760 it had to say, Yeah, I just wasn't sure if 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:51.159 it was like a typical that it would be, you know, 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:54.200 three or two, or if that mattered, if that never 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:56.520 mattered or were I don't think it really, I don't 0:20:56.520 --> 0:20:59.400 think it was. It was bringing it up for fun. No, yeah, 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:03.399 I don't think there was any significance to Some people 0:21:03.400 --> 0:21:06.400 believe that it might have meant that the plane broke 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:09.239 up in mid air before it hit, but you know, 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:12.359 it's maybe I can see, I can see how you 0:21:12.400 --> 0:21:15.200 would take it that way. Doesn't necessarily mean that that's 0:21:15.200 --> 0:21:17.959 what happened, because I'm sorry, if you think about an 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:21.040 airplane coming down at an angle and tumbling when it 0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:24.040 hits the water, that thing's gonna fly into a bunch 0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:26.320 of big chunks. Yeah, and also you know it's going 0:21:26.359 --> 0:21:28.679 to get spread up because something's weigh a lot more 0:21:28.720 --> 0:21:32.280 than other things. Something's he's going to sink. He's gonna 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:36.800 stop faster than say, broken off wings. Yea, it took 0:21:36.800 --> 0:21:39.160 a while, but as we had talked about, eventually they 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:43.640 did get the cockpit voice recorder that was found. Um 0:21:43.720 --> 0:21:47.840 though the flight data recorders were never found. And if 0:21:47.840 --> 0:21:51.960 anybody's interested on how flight data recorders work stuff, you 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:54.240 should know did a great episode on it and it 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:56.000 took them an hour to explain it. Also, we're not 0:21:56.040 --> 0:21:58.359 going to go into this. You know. The thing about 0:21:58.359 --> 0:22:01.600 the about the data recorders is is why haven't they 0:22:01.640 --> 0:22:04.240 invented a self ejecting one, one that senses a crash 0:22:04.320 --> 0:22:06.280 is about to occur and just pops itself out of 0:22:06.280 --> 0:22:08.840 the plane, Because that's always it's always such an ordeal 0:22:08.880 --> 0:22:10.560 to find that thing. I just don't know why they 0:22:10.600 --> 0:22:13.439 don't make them more floaty. Yeah, they should, like you know, 0:22:13.680 --> 0:22:18.000 they should. It is the technical term. Yeah, I learned 0:22:18.000 --> 0:22:22.080 that on the cruise ship. Everybody can take a drink 0:22:22.760 --> 0:22:24.800 just trying to get drinks in for our drinking friends. 0:22:25.359 --> 0:22:29.000 I'm pretty sure that's one on the drinking game. I think. 0:22:29.040 --> 0:22:31.240 I think just just like like tape them to the 0:22:31.240 --> 0:22:32.960 outside of the plane so they come off in the 0:22:33.040 --> 0:22:36.800 crash and they float up to the surface. Yeah, duct 0:22:36.800 --> 0:22:40.959 tape every you know, three flights or whatever. Yeah, with 0:22:41.000 --> 0:22:49.480 the when you're examining all of the oxygen things. Yeah, okay, 0:22:49.520 --> 0:22:51.240 So they send the r o vs down. The r 0:22:51.280 --> 0:22:53.960 o v s recover parts of the plane. The things 0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:56.119 that they think are going to be important to examine. 0:22:56.440 --> 0:22:58.920