Historys Most Shocking S01 E04
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00:00♪♪
00:31This really looks like a Hollywood stunt that's gone horribly wrong.
00:35And before you ride a bike into a train tunnel, please watch this first.
00:39The first rule of train tunnels is to not go into train tunnels.
00:43♪♪
00:47Disasters.
00:49For the humanity.
00:51Shocking video.
00:54Life or death decisions.
00:56Behind histories caught on camera moments.
00:59What to do with one dead whale.
01:01Are the mysteries of how and why they happen.
01:04Some sort of metal fatigue was most likely at Fulton.
01:09It's like a bulldozer.
01:11Very few buildings can actually withstand that force of moving water.
01:16I'm Tony Harris.
01:21Prepare to be shocked.
01:23♪♪
01:29Good evening and welcome to history's most shocking.
01:33Imagine you're in a plane and the engine fails.
01:37You might see your whole life flash in front of your eyes.
01:40Or you might see an opportunity.
01:42What do I mean?
01:44Check this out.
01:48It's November 24th, 2021 in Lompoc, California.
01:52Amateur pilot Trevor Jacob takes off in his 1940 Taylor Craft airplane
01:58for the 220 mile flight to Mammoth Lakes
02:01to spread the ashes of a deceased friend who died in a base jumping accident.
02:10I just put as many cameras as I could on the plane for that specific flight.
02:15I just wanted to make sure that every angle was covered.
02:18But then while cruising at around 8,000 feet,
02:21the plane's engine suddenly fails.
02:25Holy s***.
02:27I'm over the mountains and I f***ing had an engine out.
02:30Trevor makes the decision to abandon the powerless plane.
02:34That specific plane actually doesn't have a starter.
02:37So you'd have to physically be outside of the aircraft to prop start the plane.
02:42So I just decided to jump out.
02:46Trevor films his free fall
02:50as the unpiloted plane films its own crash into the mountains.
02:57Meanwhile, he steers his parachute towards the wreckage, landing in scrub brush.
03:04F***. F***.
03:06Get me out of this.
03:10Oh my God.
03:13Trevor retrieves his cameras from the plane,
03:15but with no cell service, he's forced to hike for 10 hours to find help.
03:19It felt like 100 degrees.
03:21I'm crawling through poison oak, getting all cut up.
03:25Well after nightfall, Trevor is finally rescued by local farmers.
03:29Hello. Oh my gosh.
03:32That was the gnarliest day of my life.
03:34I was completely drained.
03:36I was just like literally just so happy to be alive.
03:40Trevor's fateful plane ride racked up more than 4 million hits online.
03:45But soon, astute viewers started seeing strange inconsistencies
03:49and began to question whether or not this was a true emergency.
03:53Did the popular YouTuber survive a real crash?
03:56Or was it all a stunt?
03:58Let's see how our experts navigate this one.
04:04On the one hand, small plane crashes aren't that uncommon.
04:07Data from 2019 showed the rate of private plane accidents
04:11was 25 times higher than the rate for commercial planes.
04:14This is largely due to differing levels of experience,
04:17less regulatory oversight, and fewer requirements for general aviation.
04:21But despite the evident dangers,
04:23many viewers of this video began to suspect a trick.
04:27One of the things a lot of people pointed out right away
04:30is that as soon as the engine stops,
04:32he doesn't hesitate, he just jumps.
04:35But small planes like this are great for gliding,
04:38and pilots are trained to glide
04:40until they're able to find a safe place to put the plane down.
04:43Normal procedure for a pilot that has experienced an engine failure
04:47would be to pitch the nose of the aircraft down
04:50to increase the speed of the aircraft to reach glide speed.
04:54You're maintaining stable flight, start looking for places to land.
04:58We don't see any of those in this video.
05:00In fact, he appears to be pulling back on the yoke
05:03and slowing the aircraft down.
05:06And there are other clues in the video that don't add up,
05:09like his open door.
05:11One of the items on your checklist before you take off is secure the door.
05:15This guy's flying around with his door already cracked.
05:18Why? Big red flag.
05:20Jeff Wise also notes that despite his life being in danger,
05:23Trevor appears to have a bigger priority on his mind.
05:26When you find yourself in a life-or-death situation,
05:29you have an effect that's called cognitive tunneling,
05:32which means that you aren't able to think about all the different things that are going on.
05:36And yet he's carrying a selfie stick,
05:38which is the most unnecessary thing you could have in a life-or-death situation.
05:42Another thing might make you go, hmm, Trevor's parachute.
05:46It's not totally uncommon for pilots,
05:49particularly in these small, personal aircraft, to have parachutes on board.
05:53Oftentimes, these are emergency chutes, handy where the pilot can get to them.
05:58What this guy is wearing is a very different contraption.
06:01It's a sports chute.
06:02It's worn by people who go up into a plane with the specific purpose of jumping out.
06:07The evidence doesn't add up for authorities either,
06:11especially since Trevor had the plane wreckage removed and scrapped before they could investigate.
06:17Facing criminal prosecution,
06:19Trevor pleaded guilty to one count of destruction and concealment
06:22with the intent to obstruct a federal investigation.
06:25I'm not proud of what I did,
06:27and I knew in my heart that that wasn't a good thing to do,
06:32and I shouldn't have done that.
06:33I'm grateful that nobody got hurt.
06:35Oh, my gosh.
06:38The takeaway?
06:39Straight-up clickbait.
06:41Trevor intentionally abandoned his plane just to film the crash.
06:46Despite Trevor's contrition, he was sentenced to six months in federal prison.
06:51Oh, and remember his buddy's ashes?
06:54Well, exploiting human remains for a publicity stunt isn't a crime,
06:58but maybe it should be.
07:01Moving on.
07:02When most of us call the exterminator,
07:04it's to control common household pests like roaches or mice.
07:09Those are certainly stressful,
07:11but imagine if your home was infested by something bigger, longer, and much more dangerous.
07:17A warning.
07:18Some of what you're about to see may be disturbing.
07:25February 12, 2023.
07:27Pahang State, Malaysia.
07:29A family reports hearing strange creaking sounds coming from the attic of their home.
07:34They call in some professionals who start probing the ceiling with poles.
07:39Coming out of a hole in the ceiling is a long tail curling and twitching.
07:43This can't be good.
07:45After a few more prods, there's a cracking sound.
07:48And then...
07:50Ow!
07:51The whole ceiling comes crashing down,
07:54exposing two huge intertwined pythons,
07:57measuring more than a combined 30 feet in length.
08:01In case you need more nightmare fuel, let's see that again.
08:07Ow!
08:10And they aren't only creepy and crawly.
08:12These animals are some of the deadliest predators on Earth.
08:17These snakes are reticulated pythons.
08:20And wild reticulated pythons are said to be pretty aggressive.
08:25And they're constrictors, which means they kill by suffocating their prey.
08:29And they're actually a pretty big problem in Malaysia and Indonesia.
08:35Some people have even found them in their toilet bowls.
08:39Reticulated pythons have something called indeterminate growth,
08:43which really means that there's no set point to how big they can get.
08:49These two pythons weighed together 110 pounds.
08:53It's really like having a small woman up there in your ceiling.
08:57These pythons are known to eat anything they can unhinge their jaws around,
09:02including crocodiles like this unlucky specimen,
09:05and even, occasionally, humans.
09:08In fact, in March of 2017, not far from where this video was taken,
09:13an Indonesian farmer went missing for several days.
09:17And when the locals discovered a 23-foot-long python with a distended stomach,
09:22they sliced it open, revealing the unfortunate man's remains.
09:26There have even been reported cases of these reticulated pythons
09:30eating the children of hunter-gatherers who lived in the jungle.
09:35Think this won't happen to you because you're in the States?
09:38Think again.
09:39Because of the exotic pet trade in Florida,
09:42non-native Burmese pythons have become one of the state's most concerning invasive species.
09:48But this video raises questions.
09:50Why were these huge snakes in the attic?
09:53And is this the right way to handle that horrifying situation if it happens in your house?
10:05Snakes are capable of sniffing out mice or any sort of food that's in the house,
10:11so it's very appealing to a snake to find a place within your home
10:16that offers them either the heat that they need or the coolness that they need
10:21while also getting some free food.
10:23Snakes of all types from around the world, including here in the U.S.,
10:27rely on stable climates to regulate their cold-blooded temperatures.
10:31Since warm air rises in a home with good ventilation,
10:34this makes your attic the perfect destination.
10:37There's also a higher probability of encountering some vermin to snack on.
10:40Think about that the next time you hear a strange sound up in the ceiling.
10:46Dr. Mayer also suspects an additional detail about these snakes
10:50that may have prompted them to seek shelter.
10:52The funny part about the snakes coming down is that they were actually mating.
10:57So they interrupted what could have possibly become quite a lot more snakes in that ceiling.
11:03So did this family make it out alive?
11:06Well, it took an hour, but the animal control team finally got the snakes out of the house.
11:10But what can you do if you find a snake in your home?
11:15They definitely did the right thing by calling professionals.
11:18These snakes are so large and strong.
11:22Even when professionals are handling them, they recommend one person per meter of the snake
11:27because they're so able to rapidly coil around you.
11:31So for a regular person to get these snakes down, it would have been life-threatening.
11:36The best thing is to identify the snake so that you know what appropriate actions you can take.
11:42A venomous snake can be very dangerous.
11:45Snake venom works incredibly quickly,
11:48and it's especially true with small pets and small children.
11:52I'm going to go check my ceiling when I get home today.
11:56Our takeaway? These were mating snakes looking for a dark, private place.
12:02In this case, the snakes were released in a safe place in the wild.
12:06But here in the U.S., it's another story.
12:09South Florida's Python Elimination Program, which began in 2017,
12:13recently captured and euthanized its 8,000th python
12:17in an effort to rebalance the Everglades ecosystem.
12:22We seem to have a fascination with great white sharks, and really, can you blame us?
12:28Getting the chance to see one of these amazing creatures up close and personal is a rare opportunity.
12:33But for the cage-diving tourist in our next video,
12:37this great white encounter was very close to being his last.
12:44October 2016.
12:46A group of amateur divers is on a five-day shark cruise off the coast of Guadalupe Island, Mexico.
12:51The divers are taking turns submerging into the water using specialized protective cages
12:56while the ship's crew members bait the water with tuna.
13:00Everything seems to be going according to plan when suddenly,
13:04a great white shark gobbles up one of the tied tuna shanks and starts thrashing about violently.
13:11The frenzied beast then smashes his way inside one of the diving cages.
13:16Take a closer look.
13:17We see a shark fin struggling between the bars
13:22and what appears to be blood coming to the surface.
13:27Then, the shark explodes upwards in a crimson mist, flailing about until it finally escapes.
13:33Was there anybody in there?
13:35Nobody's in the cage.
13:36Actually, that's wrong.
13:38There is someone in the cage, and that crimson plume of blood is not a good sign.
13:45How could one man survive being caged up with one of the ocean's deadliest predators?
13:50They've got a bite force of up to 4,000 pounds per square inch.
13:55For comparison, the bite force of the average human is only 162 pounds per square inch.
14:01Their jaws are lined with five or six rows of continuously regrowing teeth.
14:07These things are built to kill.
14:10And if you think the frightening encounter in this video was a fluke,
14:13Coronis warns that this has already happened again right in the same location.
14:18Just three years after this video was taken,
14:21another great white ended up decapitating itself after getting snarled up in one of these cages.
14:26Because of encounters like this,
14:28the Mexican authorities have really cracked down and tried to protect these sharks.
14:34The idea for shark cage diving goes back to the 1950s,
14:38although it really didn't catch on until the mid-1970s after the release of the film Jaws.
14:43But the questions are, why does this happen?
14:46Is the shark attacking the cage to get at the diver?
14:49Or is there another explanation?
14:55Critics of these tourist shark dives frequently point to the excessive amount of bloody chum used to attract these fearsome creatures.
15:03Sharks are extremely large predators and they can sense blood from hundreds of yards away.
15:08And we're overtaking its senses by also chumming the water.
15:12So it's in sensory overload.
15:15This is why we have a feeding frenzy or what we perceive as very aggressive behavior in sharks.
15:20In fact, thanks to their nostrils being lined with tons and tons of sensory cells called olfactory epithelium,
15:27scientists believe great whites can detect a single drop of blood floating within 10 billion drops of water.
15:33These shark cages offer a false sense of security.
15:37While they look safe, a lot of the times there are large enough openings for a shark to get in,
15:44but then not to really be able to turn around and get out.
15:48I would rather be in the water with the shark because at that point,
15:51at least I have eyes on the animal and I have space.
15:54And more importantly, the shark has space.
15:56Amazingly, in this video, you can see the crew pulls up the diver who had been in the cage with the shark the entire time.
16:04And miraculously, he is unharmed.
16:07That blood was from wounds the shark received while smashing through the steel cage.
16:12Still, Mayer believes people shouldn't be deterred from swimming with great white sharks.
16:17They just need to do it correctly.
16:19If you do find yourself in a situation like this,
16:22the best thing to do is to try to duck down as low as possible and as far away from the shark as you possibly can,
16:29because the shark's natural instinct, and you see it in this video,
16:33is to immediately swim up and try to get out of the cage.
16:38All it wants to do is escape, not attack.
16:42Our takeaway? This is natural shark behavior.
16:46We agree with our experts that using chum to attract sharks is only going to lead to more situations like what we see here.
16:53But because of videos like this, governments are taking action.
16:56As of early 2023, all great white cage diving in Isla Guadalupe has been banned until further notice.
17:05Now let's move from the ocean back to terra firma.
17:09Or in this case, terra firma.
17:12Easy question. A freight train versus a bicycle.
17:15Who's going to win?
17:16Hard question.
17:18What would you do if you were on the bike?
17:24May 12, 2018.
17:26Bahamas of Brazil.
17:28Two cyclists are out for a ride.
17:30They brought along a small camera, but they forgot to pack their common sense.
17:35They're trying to avoid the main highway.
17:40And their choices to do that are either swim down through a river, climb some rocks, or go through a train tunnel.
17:46And I think you can see where this is headed.
17:48The tunnel is dark and quiet as they enter, but not for long.
17:5120 seconds in, right here is the uh-oh moment,
17:55as they first see the lights and hear the dreadful sound of an oncoming train.
18:01Come on, sailor!
18:03Frantic, the cyclist filming throws down his bike and makes a run for the entrance.
18:08Has this hapless pair made their last wrong turn?
18:13Or is there light at the end of the tunnel?
18:16Stay with us.
18:20A pair of cyclists has ventured into a train tunnel.
18:23Come on, sailor!
18:24Much to their regret.
18:27But, despite this remarkable combination of bad judgment and bad luck,
18:38the two make it out with a ferocious locomotive hot on their tail.
18:42I went frame by frame, and it was 60 frames between the time that he left the tunnel and the time the train left the tunnel.
18:52That equates to two seconds.
18:54Only two seconds between life and death for this guy.
18:57As soon as the coast is clear, the cyclist goes back into the tunnel and safely retrieves his bike.
19:03But not everyone who trespasses on train tracks is so lucky.
19:07Each year in the U.S., there are roughly 400 trespass fatalities on train tracks, and almost as many injuries.
19:14In fact, 94% of rail-related fatalities in the U.S. take place at crossings or as a result of trespassing, like these guys.
19:24The stats are as scary as the footage, but just how close did these guys come to getting themselves killed?
19:31Let's break it down.
19:36Surprisingly, running for it might have been the most natural response, but perhaps not the smartest.
19:42Tunnels are, on the average, about 15 feet wide.
19:46Railroad cars are about 10 feet, 8 inches wide.
19:49So you're going to have about 2 feet on each side.
19:52Generally, you'll have enough clearance and space there to survive a passing train.
19:56And look, the video provides a major clue that proves the point.
20:01When the guy went back to retrieve it and the bike was still in good condition, it hadn't been hit.
20:06So if he had just laid down prone parallel to the wall of the tunnel,
20:10he would have had probably plenty of room to have the train safely pass over him.
20:16Quimby asserts that trying to leave the tunnel was actually the riskier decision.
20:21Most people don't outrun trains.
20:23Even if they can see you, they generally can't stop within their sight distance.
20:27A train's speed limit depends on location and conditions.
20:30But a train going just 55 miles per hour could take up to a mile and a half to come to a complete stop.
20:36That's a distance of about 20 football fields.
20:39If you wanted to avoid completely getting hurt, don't go in the tunnel to begin with.
20:44These guys are lucky that their foolishness didn't cost them their lives.
20:50The takeaway? Never do this. Obviously.
20:54If you have to cross tracks while biking, cross at a 90-degree angle.
20:59And walk. Don't ride across. That way your wheels won't get stuck.
21:06When you see an 18-wheeler on the highway, does your heart skip a beat?
21:11Do you speed up to pass it or slow down to avoid it?
21:14For many drivers, sharing the road with these colossal trucks is downright nerve-wracking.
21:19And, as one driver found out, the fear is justified.
21:27November 30th, 2021. It's morning on Highway I-294 in the western outskirts of Chicago.
21:33A dashcam shows an 18-wheeler in the lanes ahead, leaving a trail of smoke behind.
21:38At first, you'd assume this big rig definitely needs an oil change or a new muffler.
21:42But nobody in their wildest dreams expected to see this.
21:46A car is wedged at a perpendicular angle underneath the 18-wheeler's trailer.
21:51And if that wasn't wild enough, suddenly, 19-year-old Lalisha Gardner pokes her head out of the demolished driver's side window.
22:01I don't know what's worse about this footage.
22:04Thinking that someone was seriously hurt or even killed.
22:07Or knowing that there's someone who's awake and aware enough to wave around looking for help.
22:11This looks like a Hollywood stunt gone horribly wrong.
22:15Meanwhile, another camera captures the action from the other side of the truck.
22:20And while this crazy crash may seem unprecedented, there's actually a name for this kind of accident.
22:26They're called underrides.
22:28There are federal statistics that go back as far as the 1960s, describing the number of these incidents and how often they occur.
22:35In fact, a famous underride accident from the 1960s is among one of the earliest reported.
22:41In 1967, actress Jane Mansfield was riding behind a truck.
22:47The truck slowed to about 30 miles an hour, but Mansfield's driver did not slow down in time.
22:51And he slid up right underneath the truck.
22:53The top half of the car was absolutely destroyed and three passengers were killed, including the actress.
22:59According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, underride crashes killed more than 400 people in 2021.
23:07But what causes accidents like this to happen in the first place?
23:11And what happened here?
23:13We take that question to our experts.
23:18The research shows that underride accidents fall into two categories.
23:22The first one we see frequently where somebody's coming up behind a tractor trailer, not paying attention, and they stuff their car under the back of a trailer.
23:30The second is what we see here, when a car goes under the trailer at a perpendicular angle.
23:36It's usually at an intersection when they're crisscrossing each other, or the truck making a U-turn.
23:43But in this case, they were traveling parallel.
23:46And because they were parallel, it was hard to figure out how they got there.
23:50According to reports, LaLisha says she was just changing lanes.
23:55It's unclear why she didn't see the truck.
23:57But you have to always consider factors like glare, and whether the sun's a contributing factor, or whether just the fact that she was low and the truck is white.
24:05But the big question you may have already been asking, how come the truck driver didn't notice the car was there?
24:11News reports indicate LaLisha was being dragged long enough to make multiple phone calls for help.
24:17Usually truck drivers have a convex mirror there that looks down the side.
24:21The mirrors on the side, and the increased friction, I'm not sure why the trucker didn't see her on the side.
24:28Even if the truck driver had noticed her right away, it's a nearly impossible situation to navigate.
24:34If I was that truck driver, what am I going to do?
24:36I can't pull over necessarily, because that means that I'm going to go at an angle, and the trailer could go over the car.
24:41And if people aren't really paying close attention, we could have a pileup.
24:44Finally, motorists are able to get the truck driver's attention, and he pulls over.
24:51Miraculously, LaLisha doesn't have any major physical injuries.
24:54So how did she make it out alive?
24:56Martina says she can thank the aptly named safety cage, a rigid frame designed to protect passengers in the event of a crash.
25:05That whole front of the car disappeared, but the safety cage was still pretty much intact.
25:10And that's the only thing you've got to worry about if you're trying to stay alive, right?
25:13It's where your head is, where your chest is.
25:15But hate adds this type of underwriting accident is bound to happen again.
25:20While today, rear guards are mandated on 18-wheelers, side guards are not.
25:26The reason for that is anything you put underneath the bed of the trailer minimizes how much ground clearance you have.
25:32So going over a bump, going over train tracks, those sorts of things become tougher.
25:38The takeaway? This appears to be a freak accident during a lane change.
25:43Despite an apparently oblivious truck driver, the accident report assigned no blame to either party in the mishap.
25:50But it's likely this won't be the last time we see this.
25:53Side guards might save lives, but they still aren't mandatory in the U.S.
26:00Mesopotamians invented the first sewer system using clay pipes.
26:05Today, modern sewer systems are ubiquitous.
26:08But have you ever thought about what's actually down there?
26:11Well, one little boy in China did.
26:14And he got a pretty explosive answer.
26:16Check this out.
26:20It's January 22, 2021 in Dazhou, China.
26:25A CCTV camera overlooking a sparsely populated plaza records a small child appearing to place something in the crevice of a manhole cover before quickly running away.
26:35Then suddenly...
26:39Take another look.
26:41The covers explode off of at least five manholes arranged in a diagonal row.
26:47After the explosion, the police investigated and discovered the object the child dropped was a lit firecracker.
26:55And it's not the first time something like this has happened.
26:58There was actually an incident in Iran where a man was standing in the street smoking a cigarette.
27:03And he decided to toss it into a hole in the ground when he was finished.
27:07And that caused the entire street to explode.
27:12He somehow managed to survive.
27:14He crawled away. His shoes were blown clean off.
27:17Like, that's how powerful the explosion was.
27:20McCarthy says these scary situations really make you stop to think about what's flowing beneath our streets.
27:27There is a whole world under our feet that basically transports things like our water and our waste and stuff that we just kind of toss down the drains.
27:36And it creates kind of a volatile and mysterious mix.
27:40Among this mix is a funny sounding substance known as a fatberg.
27:45Fatbergs are essentially oils and fats that have been turned into soap.
27:52Because they undergo this process called saponification where water flowing over concrete interacts with the fats.
28:00And it basically just makes a giant ball of soap in the sewer.
28:04They can clog up the entire sewer system and cause a lot of damage.
28:08So there's clearly lots of unsavory stuff piling up under our cities.
28:12And though what happened in China may be child's play, messing with sewers can be serious business.
28:21In 2017, the largest fatberg ever found was discovered in a sewer in London.
28:27The blockage weighed in at 130 tons, the equivalent of 11 double-decker buses.
28:34But fatbergs aren't known to explode.
28:37So what happened here?
28:42Our experts say there's a reason why dropping lit objects into the ground can cause huge explosions like this.
28:50Sewers are particularly dangerous because they're very confined, tight spaces with not a lot of ventilation.
28:56There's a variety of things that can be explosive down there.
28:59Whether it be methane gas from human feces or other bio-waste, industrial waste, gasoline.
29:04So just the littlest spark can cause an enormous explosion.
29:08Methane is produced by the breakdown of organic material such as human waste.
29:13The pick holes in manhole covers like these in China not only help workers open the covers for access,
29:19they can also ventilate any buildup of gas.
29:22Yet here we see one downside to these openings.
29:25They allow entry to things that shouldn't be there.
29:28So in the U.S., there's a lot more to curbing methane than just a few pick holes.
29:33In the United States, we have different treatment facilities throughout our sewer lines that break down and remove chemicals.
29:41But these exposed sewers like in China and the one in Iran don't have to meet the same standard for treatment.
29:48So the methane is much stronger and it actually compounds.
29:53So on the surface, these two explosions seem very similar.
29:57But there's a wrinkle with the Iran explosion.
30:00Remember, that one took out a whole city sidewalk.
30:03It appears that about 15 minutes before the blast, the same CCTV camera captured someone dumping something into the hole.
30:11That material could have been gunpowder soaked in gasoline.
30:15But even gunpowder at its lowest level, when you put a fire to it, will burn before it explodes.
30:21So Anderson doubts whatever it was caused an explosion.
30:24So what did?
30:25Another theory is a ruptured underground natural gas line.
30:29Could that crack be a sign?
30:30Anderson says not so fast.
30:32A lot of times that gas ignites and you see a flame.
30:35So you can almost rule out the idea that it's natural gas.
30:39That leaves only one possible explanation.
30:41The same culprit as China, methane gas, perhaps more concentrated because of the Iranian sewer's outdated design.
30:48I really think that the one in Iran was just a sewage canal.
30:52What we have are raw sewage flowing through the canals of the street area.
30:58Human methane gas gets captured in this canal.
31:03And when someone introduces some type of form of heat, it then explodes basically like a pipe bomb going off.
31:15The takeaway?
31:16Lit objects cause biogas explosions underground.
31:21Fortunately, explosive sewer gas is typically prevented from entering homes and other buildings,
31:26thanks to plumbing traps that create a water seal at points of entry.
31:31Vents also allow dangerous gases to be exhausted outside.
31:36The Cold War between the West and the Soviet Union wasn't just about geopolitics or the space race.
31:42It was also about the future of aviation and the new kind of plane that many believed was going to define the future.
31:50Until those plans came crashing down.
31:56June 3rd, 1973.
31:58Goussainville, France.
32:00It's the biannual Paris Air Show, and all eyes are on a revolutionary moment in travel.
32:05Two supersonic passenger planes that fly more than two times faster than the average commercial jet,
32:11reaching speeds above 1500 miles per hour.
32:15The Concorde, built in a partnership between Britain and France, and the Soviet's Tupolev Tu-144.
32:22The Soviet's plane is dubbed by the West as the Concorde ski.
32:26It's got the same delta wing airframe and downward pointed nose.
32:30Spectators present at the event were dying to see which plane would outperform or outmaneuver the other in the air.
32:36The Concorde completes its demonstration ahead of the Concorde ski and without a hitch.
32:41Now it's the Soviet's turn, but then disaster strikes.
32:45Suddenly, without warning, the Concorde ski is in trouble as it goes into a steep climb and tight turn.
32:51Then suddenly begins to break up and catch fire in the air.
32:54Let's see that again.
32:55A television camera records the plane as it appears to go into a dive during a turn.
33:00Then suddenly pieces fall off the plane and it bursts into flames just before it slams into the ground.
33:06The incident killed six people on board the aircraft and eight people on the ground
33:11and effectively doomed the Tu-144 from ever flying outside the Soviet Union.
33:16Unsurprisingly, the Concorde wins the battle for commercial supersonic air travel.
33:21In 1976, service begins between Europe and the Americas, cutting a six to eight hour flight across the Atlantic in half.
33:28For more than two decades, the Concorde ruled the supersonic skies and the Concorde ski became a footnote.
33:36The Concorde flew without incident until 2000 when Air France flight 4590 crashed just after takeoff, killing all 109 people on board.
33:46It was found that debris on a runway contributed to that disaster.
33:51But what doomed the Concorde's Soviet cousin?
33:54Our experts are on the hunt for the Pravda.
33:57That means the truth.
34:01When it comes to supersonic flight, it's all about speed.
34:05But the Concorde ski may have been going a little too fast.
34:09The Tu-144 was rushed through its development in an attempt to beat the Concorde to the market.
34:15Plus, the airplane's aerodynamic design just didn't seem as sleek as the Concorde.
34:21And from what I see on the video, I'm very suspicious of a overstress of the airframe.
34:27In other words, this airplane was moving too rapidly and maneuvering too aggressively to allow its wings and structure to stay intact.
34:37The pilots likely may have overstressed the aircraft using aggressive control movements.
34:43As you can see here, the airplane begins to descend downward.
34:47And during the descent, you can see chunks of the wing fall apart.
34:52It's a midair in-flight structural failure of some sort.
34:56But were those sudden aggressive maneuvers premeditated or an emergency response?
35:02One claim is the pilot of a Concorde ski was startled by a nearby French fighter jet.
35:06The theory was the Russian crew was not informed that this French Mirage jet was in the area.
35:13And that caused a severe evasive maneuver that overstressed the airplane.
35:18That's a bit of a dubious theory to me.
35:21In the video, you don't see another jet.
35:23You just see the airplane maneuvering and then coming apart.
35:27But there's another theory to explain the Concorde ski's sudden maneuvers that could be much more plausible.
35:33This competition between who's going to be the first to have the best supersonic commercial jet is a huge driving factor.
35:40And this occurred at an air show where you're supposed to show off your aircraft.
35:45I think it certainly cannot be ruled out just how much that may have played into the pilot's psyche
35:52and his decision to push this aircraft beyond its limits.
35:57Despite this disaster, in 1977, the Soviet Tu-144 began passenger service between Moscow and Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan.
36:05But that ended months later when a new Tu-144 crash-landed during a test flight.
36:11The reason for that crash was determined to be a fuel leak.
36:15But what really caused the Paris air show disaster remains a mystery.
36:19There's never been a definitive conclusion, but probably the theory that fits the best for what caused this crash
36:25would be a combination of a pilot error and design of the Concorde ski itself.
36:34The takeaway? McMillan and Gussetti certainly present a strong case.
36:39But ultimately, the fact is no one can say for certain what really happened that day in the skies over Paris.
36:45Meanwhile, a supersonic renaissance may be right over the horizon.
36:50American carriers are investing heavily in the technology,
36:53though that two-and-a-half-hour flight from New York to L.A. is still years away.
36:59You'd think perhaps the one time your car doesn't pose a risk of any accident is when it's turned off and parked.
37:07After watching this video, you might just want to buy a bike.
37:15July 24th, 2022. The streets are quiet on a hot summer day in Fuzhou, China.
37:20A man is about to get on his motorbike.
37:22His bike is next to a parked car with no driver inside when CCTV footage captures this.
37:32Let's see that again.
37:35A great burst of noise is followed by what appears to be gas filling a parked silver car.
37:41Then, a sudden explosion sends shards of glass and bent metal airborne.
37:50Moments later, firemen are called to the scene to put out the flames.
37:54And luckily, the motorcyclist gets away unscathed.
37:58This guy almost gets his head taken off when he least expects it.
38:02Something flares in the car. He turns to look at it.
38:05So you know there was a noise that alerted him to it, but there was nothing he could do.
38:09Pappalardo says there's no shortage in history of cars just blowing up.
38:13In fact, the Ford Pinto became infamous in the 1970s for bursting into flames.
38:18Most of those explosions were caused by rear-end collisions that ruptured the Pinto's gas tank and caused vapors to spread through the car.
38:26Usually, car accidents are associated with speeding, hitting things, being hit by them.
38:31The idea that a stationary car poses a threat is kind of alien and weird to us.
38:36But inside that vehicle, there's stored energy.
38:39Even a parked car can be a dangerous car.
38:42So Pappalardo floats another theory.
38:44Could this have something to do with the batteries found in electric cars?
38:48The batteries inside electric vehicles can be prone to be set on fire in an accident or even sitting stationary.
38:55In the same way, gas tanks have been associated with those things as well.
39:01After Hurricane Ian hit Florida in the fall of 2022, a number of electric cars caught fire when their batteries became waterlogged and began to corrode.
39:11But why did this car in China explode?
39:14Our experts go under the hood of this mechanical mystery.
39:22We see what looks like a cloud of gas in the car before the explosion.
39:28So could the lithium-ion batteries found in electric cars be to blame?
39:33Lithium-ion batteries carry their own oxygen.
39:36If they overheat, they may do something called thermal runaway.
39:40Before that happens, they put out some gas, and gas is explosive.
39:44Martinez says the batteries overheat, particularly if they're used or charged incorrectly because of what's known as thermal runaway.
39:53That happens when a battery cell generates heat much faster than it can dissipate.
39:58And that day was particularly hot in Fuzhou.
40:02But there's a clue that this may not be an electric car at all.
40:06They're spraying the way you would with a gasoline fire with water.
40:09An electric fire would take a lot more water, a lot more effort to put out.
40:13We did some digging and confirmed it was a gasoline car made by the Chinese automaker Dongfang.
40:20But the mystery remains, why did it just blow up?
40:23I wonder if that initial puff of white smoke wasn't something like a small portable lithium-ion battery like in a drone.
40:29And after they've been flying a while, those batteries get pretty hot.
40:32There's a chance for them to start a fire.
40:34It also could be somebody was carrying a gas can around with them, and it allowed the vapors to build up inside the car.
40:41But that's a really tough one to sort out.
40:45The takeaway? We can't say for sure what caused this blast.
40:49But since the smoke started from inside the passenger compartment, it's likely it was set off by a portable gas can or lithium-ion battery.
40:58Not from the car itself, but from something left inside, like a cell phone.
41:03And that's our show for tonight. Thank you so much for watching, and stay safe out there.