Historys Most Shocking S01 E03
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00:00Tonight, on History's Most Shocking,
00:03are people being swallowed by whales?
00:06The kayakers just happened to be caught up in a feeding event.
00:10How did a pilot land his plane on a highway?
00:14He can't slow down because he may aerodynamically stall.
00:18What set off the largest non-nuclear explosion ever?
00:23Thousands were displaced.
00:25Buildings crumbled as if they were paper.
00:29And what inspired the inventor who bet his life on his idea and lost?
00:34Eighty miles an hour isn't a speed that we can survive when we touch the ground.
00:40Disasters.
00:45Shocking video.
00:47Life or death decisions.
00:49Behind History's caught-on-camera moments...
00:52What to do with one dead whale.
00:54...are the mysteries of how and why they happened.
00:57Some sort of metal fatigue was most likely at Fulton.
01:02It's like a bulldozer.
01:04Very few buildings can actually withstand that force of moving water.
01:09I'm Tony Harris.
01:14Prepare to be shocked.
01:22Good evening and welcome to History's Most Shocking.
01:26There are plenty of predators that lurk in the deep.
01:29But we don't usually worry about being swallowed alive by whales.
01:33Well, maybe we should.
01:40November 2nd, 2020. Avila Beach, California.
01:44For best friends Julie McSorley and Liz Cotriel,
01:48the coastal waters off California are a great way to see one of the most magnificent marine mammals in its own habitat.
01:54The humpback whale.
01:56Oh my goodness, you're beautiful.
02:00But once Julie and Liz get out into the bay...
02:03We're sitting in the kayak facing the shore, and all of a sudden the silverfish were jumping into our boat.
02:08So I thought, this whale is really, really close. I wonder where it's going to come up next.
02:12Suddenly, Julie and Liz are engulfed in the jaws of a whale.
02:18And taken underwater.
02:21Take another look in slow motion at this footage shot by a nearby kayak.
02:26You can see a large humpback whale rises out of the ocean,
02:29its mouth wide open, appearing to swallow Julie and Liz whole.
02:34All I felt was the back of the boat lift up underneath me.
02:38The mouth of the whale came up on the left.
02:41And all I thought was, is this whale going to drag us under the water.
02:46Ah!
02:49Were Julie and Liz in danger of being this whale's next meal?
02:53Turns out, there are accounts of whales swallowing humans in history.
02:58In 2021, off the coast of Cape Cod, lobster diver Michael Packard claimed that he ended up in the mouth of a humpback whale.
03:07He was in there for less than a minute before the whale spat him out.
03:10And even if she knew she wasn't going to be bitten to death by a ravenous predator like a great white shark,
03:16Julie knew her life was still in danger.
03:20That whale had decided to keep his mouth closed and drag us under.
03:23Drowning was a real possibility.
03:27After being gobbled up by a whale, how the heck do you get out?
03:32And why were these peaceful kayakers attacked in the first place?
03:36Let's see what our experts think.
03:41Tales of people being swallowed by whales have been going for centuries.
03:48But really, it's very unlikely for this type of situation to actually happen.
03:53Rare, but possible.
03:57In February of 1891, a man named James Bartley was allegedly swallowed by a sperm whale while whaling near South America.
04:06Fifteen hours later, so the story goes, his shipmates caught the whale and cut him out of its stomach.
04:12Bartley was alive, but bleached white by the whale's stomach acid.
04:20But while a sperm whale has an esophagus big enough to swallow a person, a humpback doesn't.
04:27Humpback whales are made to eat really small prey.
04:31They don't even have teeth. They can't chew.
04:34Because of the size of the prey that they eat, their throats are actually about the size of a human fist.
04:40So while you may end up in the mouth of this animal, you're not going to be eaten by it.
04:47Because of the humpback's small throat, it just spit Julian Liz out.
04:51So I was in the water, tumbling around.
04:54And because we have life vests on, I popped out of the water.
04:58And then just within a couple seconds, my friend Liz popped right up next to me.
05:02You're good.
05:06But if humans aren't the humpback's normal food, why did it try to eat them in the first place?
05:11Our experts say it was all about timing.
05:15You see this silvery, flashy pattern of fish in the beginning of the video.
05:20That's what the whale was going for.
05:23These women were there at the wrong place at the wrong time.
05:28In fact, humpback whales are known to feed by creating what's called a bubble net.
05:33This involves diving deep beneath a school of fish and using bubbles from their blowholes to stun and trap fish near the surface.
05:41You know, you see a big silvery school of fish.
05:44You might want to move out of the way a little bit because chances are there could be a whale also eyeing them.
05:52So, mystery solved.
05:54By the way, if it happens to you and the whale doesn't spit you out right away,
06:00marine biologists recommend thrashing around and even biting the whale to remind it you're not a fish.
06:06As for Julie, this terrifying experience hasn't dampened her love of the ocean.
06:11I'm not afraid of whales. They're pretty harmless and I would do it all over again.
06:16Oh my goodness, you're beautiful.
06:21Our takeaway, humans aren't whale food.
06:25But while Julie and Liz weren't in any real danger of being swallowed,
06:29they were also fish out of water in the whale's feeding zone.
06:33So always be careful and respectful when you're in an animal's natural environment.
06:39Now from the sea to the sky.
06:41When your engine suddenly sputters out while driving a car,
06:45you can just pull over onto the shoulder and call a tow truck.
06:48But what if the same thing happens to the plane you're flying?
06:57July 2022 in North Carolina's Great Smoky Mountains.
07:01Recently licensed pilot Vincent Frazier is taking his father-in-law up in his Aero Commander 100 propeller plane.
07:08I was pretty much brand spanking new. I just got my license.
07:11I had less than 100 hours on my belt.
07:14A GoPro is rolling when it happens.
07:17The plane's engine stalls out while Vincent flies at around 5,000 feet over the treacherous mountain terrain,
07:23his propellers now just being blown by the wind.
07:26If a plane runs out of fuel or the engine stops working, it's not going to just fall out of the sky.
07:32Planes are designed to glide, so a pilot that suddenly has no power
07:37still has a pretty good option of gliding to a spot for a safe landing.
07:42But the clock is ticking.
07:44Vincent must make a split-second decision and find a safe place to land.
07:49We're looking for a road, we're looking for a lake, we're looking for a river, somewhere that we can put this aircraft down.
07:54Thirteen seconds into the crisis, he spots it.
07:57A highway that, though windy, is at least relatively wide and not too busy.
08:02The chances of surviving that were a lot better than going in that river.
08:07My father-in-law is staying calm.
08:09I look at him and I apologize and I say, I'm sorry and that I love you.
08:13And then he just looked at me and he said, I love you too.
08:16I know you can do this, you just get us down safely.
08:18I have to admit, I was holding my breath during this video.
08:25Possibly the largest plane to ever attempt a highway landing was Southern Airways Flight 242.
08:31On April 4th, 1977, the DC-9 lost thrust in both engines during a thunderstorm
08:37and tried to set down on a state route in Georgia.
08:41Unfortunately, the plane crashed after its left wing clipped a gas station, killing 72 people.
08:47So why did Vincent's engine fail? And how did he manage to land safely?
08:56First things first, what went wrong with the engine?
08:59He loses thrust. There's a problem with the fuel going into the engine.
09:03Why wasn't fuel coming into the engine?
09:06What's most common is either a pilot taking off with not enough fuel in the wing tanks
09:13or if there's water in the fuel, it could contaminate the fuel.
09:19Many airplanes primarily use wing fuel tanks since they can help balance and stabilize the craft.
09:25Water can get in through leaks and seals, poorly fitting fuel caps,
09:28and by condensation, especially when the tank isn't full.
09:33So a fueling failure seems to be the most likely culprit.
09:36But in the moment of crisis, Vincent has a bigger question on his mind.
09:40How is he going to land? And 63 seconds after the initial engine failure,
09:44as he's approaching the highway, he notices a big problem.
09:48I was just skirting over the pylons, so I knew I had to kind of hold it, hold it, hold it,
09:52and then push the nose down to get under those pylons,
09:55because up ahead I could see another set of pylons.
09:58So I push down and I'm trying to line up to get under the next set of pylons.
10:02At a minute 14 seconds in, he realizes the power lines aren't his only obstacle.
10:08Now there's cars literally going right underneath me,
10:11and they're probably a few feet from our propeller.
10:15He's trying to manage this aircraft in a space that's maybe 10 feet.
10:19He can't slow down to land behind those cars because he may aerodynamically stall.
10:25Not only that, those two cars can't see him because he's behind them.
10:30So he allows the cars to pass underneath him.
10:35He continues his airspeed so he doesn't stall.
10:38He flies over those two cars and then begins to set down on the highway.
10:44Finally, one minute 45 seconds into the emergency, Vincent lands,
10:51allowing the cars to see him and brake.
10:54I put the wheels down right at the curve, and that's when you can hear the tires just squealing.
11:00And so now it's bouncing. It's very violent.
11:03And he's still not out of a danger zone.
11:06There's now cars heading towards him on the opposite side of the highway,
11:10but at least they're facing him and they can steer away from him.
11:14The highway suddenly curves, so he has to use his brakes and his flight controls
11:19to maintain a landing and curving.
11:22Two minutes and 11 seconds into the ordeal, Vincent finally comes to a complete and safe stop.
11:31A subsequent investigation confirms Guzzetti's suspicions.
11:35There was a problem with the fuel.
11:37The fuel gauge on the right was reading a quarter, and it should have read empty.
11:42Vincent says it turns out his engine was burning more fuel per hour than the standard rate,
11:47so he miscalculated how much he actually needed.
11:51Then the broken gauge failed to register this shortage, so he knows he's lucky to be alive.
11:56It was like an out-of-body experience, and I know it might sound crazy,
12:00but I felt like I was outside the aircraft and I could see everything so vividly.
12:03It was just a miracle, really.
12:06Our takeaway? A bad gauge failed to indicate the fuel shortage.
12:11But Vincent's decision not to pull up and slow down his plane may have saved his and his passengers' lives.
12:19Vincent, good flying.
12:24If you were to take all of the railroad tracks in the United States and lay them end to end,
12:30they'd circle the Earth more than five times.
12:33But not all American railroad tracks are created equal.
12:37As you'll see, some are more dangerous than others.
12:41June 25, 2021. Moody, Texas.
12:45It's just the end of another typical workday as Amandine Hu and her brother are closing up their donut shop.
12:51We started cleaning, taking everything into the kitchen, getting ready to leave,
12:57and that's when my brother called me. It just happened so quickly.
13:00Oh, my goodness.
13:02Oh, my goodness.
13:08Outside their shop, cell phone video captures the moment.
13:11A semi-truck is stranded on the train tracks and the timing couldn't be worse.
13:19No, he can't stop! Stop!
13:21Oh, my gosh. Oh, my goodness.
13:24Oh, my goodness.
13:29Oh, my gosh.
13:33Another camera on the other side of the tracks captures the same moment.
13:43Even more shocking, this has happened twice before outside Amandine's shop.
13:48It was 2018 that we saw the first train collision, and it was pretty scary.
13:53It was full of car batteries.
13:57And it's not just this unlucky spot.
14:00The trucks versus train thing happens all over the world, and the winner is the same almost every time.
14:07One of the things with crossing gates is if they're up, then that would be a malfunction of the gates when the train's coming,
14:13and that can lead to train vehicle impact.
14:17But the second thing is that sometimes people try, because no one wants to wait for a train,
14:22people try to go around the gates, and in fact, trying to go around the gate will lead to a terrible train crash.
14:31According to the Federal Railroad Administration, a train strikes a vehicle or a person every three hours.
14:38With that many crashes, we have a serious national problem on our hands.
14:42But apart from figuring out how this accident happened,
14:45what's even more puzzling is why does it keep happening at this particular crossing?
14:50Today, at most crossings, sensors typically activate crossing signals about 30 seconds before the train arrives.
15:01So did those sensors fail here?
15:04The evidence is right there on the video.
15:07The gates on this video appear to be working, because they came down on the truck that was already occupying the crossing.
15:14In fact, it's very rare to have a gates and lights protection go bad.
15:20Further investigation reveals the problem isn't the crossing mechanism, it's the crossing itself.
15:26So you've got a truck and trailer stopped on the tracks.
15:29The front and back wheels are not in contact with the road the way they should be,
15:33because there's something in the middle that's lifted up or is preventing that movement.
15:37In this case, the slope of the road on either side of the train tracks
15:41leaves trucks vulnerable to what is known as high centering on the tracks.
15:45That's when the trailer gets caught on high points between two lower ones and the wheels no longer have traction.
15:51Typically, there's some sort of signage to let the truck drivers know that there's a potential for low clearance.
15:57In case you're wondering, the driver got out before the collision.
16:00We believe that's him there.
16:02Apparently, he didn't see the signs, even though they were present.
16:06So what went wrong in the Texas case is that the driver didn't realize how much clearance he didn't have to get over the tracks.
16:15And to keep it from happening again, Quimby says there's a fix.
16:18Most railroads were built long before the roads, and therefore the vehicles on both the roads and the railroads have changed.
16:25The permanent solution would be for whoever owns that road to recontour the approaches to the track to make it a little bit less steep.
16:37The takeaway? This accident was caused by high centering.
16:41We'll check back with Amandine to see if this continues to be a problem.
16:45But let's hope whoever owns the land around the crossing, railroad, town, or county, decides to level it out.
16:53Moving on.
16:54When you're in trouble on the high seas, the Coast Guard is almost always able to answer the call.
17:00Most of those rescues go smoothly.
17:03Others go like this.
17:07February 3rd, 2023. The Coast Guard receives a mayday call just off the Oregon coast.
17:14Mayday, mayday. Ship's gonna sink, yo.
17:17They send out a couple of 47-foot motor lifeboats to see what's going on.
17:22And when they get there, they see this boat in distress.
17:25Coast Guard operations include everything from medical emergencies to boat fires and capsized vessels,
17:32covering more than 95,000 miles of U.S. coastline.
17:36It's a very elite unit. These are highly, highly skilled seamen and mariners.
17:42And this rescue appears to need some help from some air power.
17:46This yacht is just tossing and turning in the seas.
17:50And the seas are so rough, they actually can't rescue the lone person who's on board.
17:55So the Coast Guard dispatches a chopper.
17:59One of their rescue swimmers is lowered down into the stormy waters and swims toward the troubled vessel.
18:05But just as he nears the boat, a massive wall of water barrels down.
18:11Let's see that again.
18:13Watch how the gigantic wave slams into the boat, which tumbles over and over on top of the crest.
18:22This area is called the Graveyard of the Pacific.
18:25It goes from Tillamook Bay in Oregon to the top of Vancouver Island in Canada.
18:30But the worst part is where the Columbia River spills out into the Pacific.
18:35Where those two currents of water meet is chaos.
18:38Exactly where this happened.
18:41Will this unlucky yachtsman even survive?
18:44Or is the Graveyard of the Pacific about to claim another victim?
18:48This guy was about to be another statistic when things start to get crazy.
18:55The region off the Oregon coast, known as the Graveyard of the Pacific, is living up to its nickname.
19:01As you can see, the man on this boat is in mortal peril.
19:05The Coast Guard has arrived to save him.
19:07But right then, a massive wave flips the boat like a bathtub toy.
19:14The Graveyard of the Pacific has claimed more than 2,000 vessels since the 1700s.
19:20But how dangerous was this specific situation?
19:24And what happened to the people on board?
19:29First, how bad was the danger to the boat when the Coast Guard arrived?
19:34He got out to sea and apparently the engines failed, which means you lose control of the craft.
19:39In a situation like that with no power, you're completely at the mercy of the ocean.
19:43The best thing you can do is call for help as soon as you can.
19:46Without engine power and proper steering, Turner says the boat couldn't do what it needed to in this kind of emergency.
19:53What you want to do is hit the wave, bow on in that particular video.
19:57It's like the worst possible condition because he's literally sideways through a wave,
20:02which means it's going to crash over and push you over.
20:07But Turner notes the man did make one smart decision in the heat of the moment to abandon ship.
20:13You can see the sailor on the back on the deck.
20:16Most ships, when they capsize, don't automatically flip back up the right way.
20:20So if a ship capsizes, the best you can hope for is that you don't get trapped inside the ship.
20:28Fortunately, the rescue diver was able to grab and ultimately hoist him aboard the Jayhawk helicopter.
20:36So the rescuer and rescuee are safe.
20:39But there's one more question you may have been asking earlier.
20:42What was this boat doing out there to begin with?
20:45As the story starts to unfold, we learn that this is not exactly a model citizen.
20:50Jericho Wolf Labonte was actually a fugitive from the law.
20:54Labonte was apparently wanted for incidents in Oregon and also as far away as Canada, where he was from.
21:01Jericho had allegedly stolen this yacht.
21:04But unfortunately for him, he chose one of the worst possible escape routes.
21:08They call this the graveyard of the Pacific for a reason.
21:12They call this the graveyard of the Pacific for a reason.
21:15Because it's so notoriously dangerous.
21:19The takeaway? This capsizing was caused by the yacht's vulnerable position relative to the waves.
21:26After the incident, Jericho Labonte was dried off, taken into custody, and among other things,
21:31was formally charged with first-degree theft and second-degree criminal mischief.
21:36The yacht, on the other hand, became another casualty of the graveyard of the Pacific.
21:43Now, let's turn up the heat.
21:46Any animal, including humans, will do anything to escape being burned alive.
21:51Here, that fear becomes a reality.
21:53And when it happens, some deep-seated survival instincts kick in.
22:01March 25, 2014, Houston, Texas.
22:04At 12.38, firefighter Brad Hawthorne and his crew pull up to a burning apartment complex still under construction.
22:11The clock's already ticking.
22:14You get minutes to try to get this thing under control.
22:19The firefighters learn that construction supervisor Curtis Reisig is trapped after trying to put out a small fire on the roof.
22:27Within four and a half minutes, they've raised their aerial ladder.
22:31Started heading up the ladder, looking for the guy on the roof.
22:34There was fire everywhere, down the whole roof line.
22:38Then, five minutes into the operation,
22:43the driver at the bottom of the ladder, who's wearing video glasses, spots Curtis on a top-floor balcony.
22:51He started to move the ladder towards the balcony.
22:53Our aerial ladder wasn't extended enough to reach him on the fifth floor, so I was on the very tip.
22:58Meanwhile, an office worker in a building across the street captures footage of Curtis that goes viral because of what happens next.
23:06You can't get out.
23:07OMG.
23:08As the flames get closer, our experts say the temperatures are already life-threatening.
23:13The heat coming off of there had to have been incredible, probably 500, 600 degrees at least.
23:19At about 118 degrees Fahrenheit, human skin begins to sustain first-degree burns.
23:26So six minutes in, Curtis has to make a risky decision.
23:31Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.
23:34Oh, my God.
23:36Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.
23:40Time is running out for our imperiled construction worker.
23:44Fire will kill you, of course, and jumping from one balcony to another is also exceedingly dangerous.
23:51But how did this fire spread so fast, and how could Curtis possibly manage to get out alive?
24:01First, how he got out.
24:02At six minutes and 15 seconds in, Curtis jumps.
24:05Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh.
24:08And luckily, he sticks the landing.
24:11As he was swinging, his hands kind of pulled off, and he just had to let go and land and just go turn the jello, if you will, so he wouldn't fall backwards.
24:18Yet, the ladder to safety is still dozens of feet away.
24:22They need to get him.
24:24They made a point to go above the victim and bring the ladder down as opposed to going below the victim and raising the ladder up.
24:30That's important because when someone is panicked and scared, they might just jump down on the ladder, and you don't want them to do that.
24:37Finally, six minutes and 45 seconds into the operation, the ladder arrives, and Curtis reaches over.
24:44Hell, yes. Oh, thank Jesus. Thank you, God.
24:49If you watch the reflections in the office window, you can see workers turning away and walking back to their cubicles.
24:56They think it's all over, but both men are still in danger.
25:01Back up! Back up!
25:05And seven minutes and ten seconds in...
25:09Look out!
25:11Oh, no! Oh, my God!
25:13Part of the building's fifth floor collapses.
25:16Curtis escapes with some minor burns to his face and hands.
25:19They got him.
25:21Soon after, the investigation began into how the fire started.
25:25It's believed that it was a welding issue where it sparked, and because the building wasn't completed, a lot of the material is very flammable.
25:38The reason it's traveling so fast is because the wind is so great.
25:41Oxygen is what the fire needs, and when the wind is blowing, along with all the other flammable material, it will continue to engulf everything in its path.
25:51In a situation like this where the building is open, high winds can make the fire grow from something small and manageable to out of control like this very quickly.
26:01One thing's for sure. The hoses may have been shut off after the fire was extinguished, but Curtis' gratitude continues to flow.
26:09We've invited him to the station a couple times. He's probably one of the few that I've ever really kept up since a fire like that.
26:17The takeaway? The quick thinking and heroic actions of both Curtis and the firefighters saved the construction supervisor's life.
26:25As for what started the blaze? While that welding theory seems logical to our experts, the exact cause has never been determined.
26:35Beirut is home to a bustling port, one of the busiest in the eastern Mediterranean.
26:40It receives more than 2,000 ships every year. But unfortunately, this commercial shipping hub is now best known for something tragic.
26:52August 4th, 2020. It is a peaceful summer afternoon in Beirut, Lebanon.
26:57People are shooting video all around the city. A young couple is taking wedding pictures in Saifi Village in the city's central district.
27:04Meanwhile, another couple is jet skiing out in St. George Bay.
27:07And in the Ashrafieh neighborhood, tour guide Kareem Sakin is working at his bike shop.
27:13At 5.45 p.m., a fire breaks out in a warehouse in the port of Beirut.
27:18As thick smoke billows into the sky, these people start recording.
27:22And then, without warning, just after 6...
27:25A huge explosion rocks the entire city.
27:56Take another look.
27:59That initial white cloud is called a condensation or Wilson cloud.
28:04It's produced when a shockwave condenses the water vapor in humid air.
28:09What's left behind when it dissipates is a giant red and orange cloud.
28:26Rumors begin to circulate that the explosion was the result of a missile attack.
28:32Is that what really happened? Or was it something else?
28:40One study found the explosion to be the equivalent of 1.1 kilotons of TNT.
28:46And that's enough to destroy a city block.
28:49We asked our experts to get to the bottom of this terrifying situation.
28:56First, let's dispense with the conspiracy theories.
29:00The missile rumors were false.
29:02We have satellite power that we could have seen a drone or a missile go into that area.
29:11And we would see if something was coming in.
29:14Instead, Hickey says all the evidence points directly to a well-known and dangerous explosive substance.
29:20In November of 2013, we have a Russian ship carrying approximately 2,700 metric tons of ammonium nitrate.
29:28And they dock in the Beirut area.
29:31They can't pay their fee for docking, so they're ordered to unload their ship.
29:36They unload that cargo into a warehouse.
29:39Ammonium nitrate is a chemical typically used in fertilizers.
29:42And under certain circumstances, it becomes explosive.
29:47And this is not the first time this has happened.
29:50In April 1947, 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer that was loaded onto a French cargo ship exploded and set off a huge chain reaction of fires and even a tidal wave in the port of Texas City, Texas.
30:06That bag of ammonium nitrate can literally sit there all day long.
30:11Unless something is being introduced into it.
30:14And what was being introduced to it was heat shock and friction.
30:18And Hickey knows just where that extreme heat, shock and friction originated.
30:23What we hear early on are loud pops.
30:28And I would say that those are fireworks going off.
30:32A former port worker says fireworks were being stored in the same warehouse as the ammonium nitrate.
30:38And if that wasn't bad enough, this warehouse also contained jugs of kerosene, oil and five vials of blast fuses used in mining operations.
30:47Something sparked it.
30:50This initial fire and smoke is what people were filming when the flames hit the ammonium nitrate and ignited the blast.
30:57Potentially the largest non-nuclear explosion in history.
31:04The force was enough to knock people over.
31:08When sufficient energy is imparted to molecules of the atmosphere from a shockwave, even though we're talking about gas in motion, it can feel on your body as if you're being tackled by a full bodied football player.
31:29Ultimately, the explosion killed more than 200 people, injured well over 6,000 and caused billions of dollars of damage.
31:38You still feel that there's a scar on people's faces and people's looks, but we are happy to see life coming back to the streets.
31:46But, you know, the long term trauma is there.
31:50The takeaway?
31:54The Beirut port explosion was caused by careless storage of ammonium nitrate.
31:59Yet more than three years later, no one responsible for the negligence has been brought to justice.
32:07Now it's time for our throwback segment.
32:10And in this case, way back to 1912.
32:13The age of aviation is in its infancy.
32:16The age of aviation is in its infancy.
32:19And over in Paris, one daring man was hoping his own dreams could take flight.
32:23Suffice it to say, things didn't go as planned.
32:30February 4th, 1912, Paris, France.
32:33Tailored turned inventor Franz Reichelt arrives at the 1,024 foot tall Eiffel Tower to put his new low altitude wearable parachute suit to the test.
32:45Reichelt stands on a ledge about 200 feet in the air, spreads his arms and looks over his suit for any rips or tears.
32:53Then he turns and places his foot over the ledge, peering down at the ground below.
32:59After a long hesitation, his breath visible in the cold air, Reichelt jumps, his parachute flapping behind him.
33:09Mr. Reichelt was born in Austria in 1878.
33:12He moved to Paris in his adult life and became a well known tailor.
33:16And with the dawn of the airplane, he looked to the skies as the future.
33:21As airplanes continued to fly, airplanes also crashed.
33:26And pilots needed to leap out of their airplanes while they were crashing.
33:30But the parachutes of the day were not equipped to handle these low altitude jumps.
33:35And a lot of these pilots would end up dying.
33:39Reichelt becomes obsessed with finding a solution.
33:42So he starts testing prototypes on dummies, but with minimal success.
33:46Reichelt was under the impression that if he could jump from someplace higher, the chute would deploy.
33:53So he begins petitioning the Paris police and they say, yep, you could throw a dummy off the Eiffel Tower.
34:00Reichelt ignores that stipulation about the dummy and instead decides to test his invention on himself.
34:08And much like the dummies in his previous tests, his parachute chute did not work properly.
34:13And unfortunately, he perished as a result.
34:17Nobody can say for certain why Franz Reichelt was in such a rush to test his invention on himself.
34:24Some say he was racing to beat the expiration of his patent.
34:28Or that he was desperate to win prize money promised for the first successful safety parachute.
34:33Whatever his motivation, we're still left asking, why didn't his device work?
34:42First, an important distinction. This wasn't a parachute.
34:45Reichelt had actually created something closer to a wingsuit.
34:49The way wingsuits work is what you're trying to do is create enough surface area to convert the airspeed that you build when you jump off the cliff into forward flight.
35:00Even with modern wingsuits, there's still a huge component of risk.
35:04Some sources estimate that 1 in 500 wingsuit base jumps result in a casualty.
35:10But what specifically went wrong with Reichelt's design?
35:13Franz is jumping from about 200 feet.
35:16I wouldn't even consider opening the most modern wingsuit I own at the height that he's jumping from.
35:23I think Franz is hoping his suit will slow him down like a parachute would.
35:28Unfortunately, his design was not only not big enough, but was not secure enough to maintain its shape and create enough drag to slow him down.
35:37Still, despite the misguided attempt, Shapiro can understand and respect what motivates men like Reichelt.
35:44For me, the idea of being able to jump off a cliff and fly away using my arms, it's more like flying in my dreams.
35:52But in this case, although I commend his bravery, the intention was good, but the execution not so good.
36:02Our takeaway? Franz Reichelt's design wasn't aerodynamic.
36:07And his jump off the Eiffel Tower was too low to give his device enough time to open.
36:12Would it have worked if he had jumped from a higher altitude?
36:16That we may never know.
36:18And maybe that's a good thing.
36:22Bridge technology dates back to 4000 B.C. in ancient Babylon.
36:27But a recent tragedy in India is proof that we still have plenty to learn.
36:36It's just after 6.30 p.m. on October 30th, 2022 in the city of Morbi, in Gujarat, India.
36:43Scores of people are celebrating the last night of a Diwali holiday on a cable suspension footbridge,
36:49known as the Jewel Toe Pool or Hanging Bridge, which stretches more than 750 feet across the Machu River.
36:56The revelers are chatting, swaying back and forth, and taking photos when suddenly disaster strikes.
37:04I witnesses say the aftermath of the event is pure chaos.
37:26This isn't the first time a bridge has collapsed.
37:30It brings to mind a deadly incident on a much larger suspension bridge in December 1967.
37:35It happened here in the U.S.
37:50The Silver Bridge tragedy led to federal regulations and an increased emphasis on safety, which endures to this day.
37:57But while that bridge disaster could be ascribed to simple neglect, this collapse in India is more of a puzzle.
38:04Although the bridge in Morbi was about 140 years old, it had just been renovated and reopened.
38:10It's shocking to know that the Jewel Toe Pool Bridge collapsed only five days after the repair was done to the bridge.
38:22This bridge was originally constructed during the British colonization of India.
38:27The local king built it to connect two of his palaces.
38:30When this tragedy occurred, the bridge had just reopened early, after months of maintenance.
38:36So how and why did a bridge that was just fixed suddenly collapse?
38:45First, let's go back to basics.
38:47Just how is a suspension bridge supposed to work?
38:51Suspension bridges have primarily three components.
38:54There is the superstructure, which in this case includes the towers, the bridge deck, and then the suspension cables that attach to the towers down to the bridge deck.
39:05Underneath the superstructure is the substructure, which are the columns which support it, and then transfer the load down to the third component, which is the foundation.
39:16So what went wrong in this case?
39:18Didn't the recent renovation make the bridge stronger?
39:21The team found that there was old suspension cables that were welded to new suspension cables.
39:27And afterwards, there was no load testing prior to reopening the bridge.
39:32And then there was cable corrosion on the upstream side of the bridge.
39:3722 wires were already corroded and likely broken before the remaining 27 wires snapped.
39:46These problems were compounded by careless oversight and old-fashioned overloading.
39:52At the time of the collapse, there were about 300 people on a bridge that was only designed to really carry 100 to 150 people.
40:00At least 135 people died or went missing, while around 180 survivors were rescued from the river.
40:07It could have been much worse.
40:10The bridge is 50 feet above the water.
40:13When you take an average adult and let them drop 50 feet in the air, their body's traveling about 38 miles per hour when they hit the water.
40:22As they enter into the water, they are vulnerable to really potentially fatal injuries.
40:28And even those who survived the fall had to survive the water.
40:33A lot of the people who did not survive were the young kids and the elderly.
40:37And I would guess that a number of people probably drowned because they couldn't swim.
40:45The takeaway? The June Toe Pool Bridge was overloaded and its cables were improperly repaired.
40:52Nine people were arrested on charges of culpable homicide.
40:56And as of 2024, the bridge has not been rebuilt.
41:00And that's our show for tonight. Thank you so much for watching.
41:04And stay safe out there.