Air Emergency (2003–…): Season 3, Episode 2 - Attack Over Baghdad - full transcript

You wouldn't think it was a dangerous
job, delivering the mail.

They have to try to land an airliner

in a way no pilot
has ever done before.

We've lost all hydraulics!

All the controls are dead. They've
become passengers in their own plane,

and somehow, they have to land it.

Off the runway!

Even at journey's end, the ordeal
isn't over. (SIRENS WAILING)

Do not move!

(EXPLOSION)

(GUNSHOTS)
Baghdad, November 22nd 2003.



Officially the war in Iraq
has been over for months,

but the country is violent
and unstable. No-one feels safe.

A civilian cargo plane has just
taken off from the city's airport.

We're struck!

Within seconds,
the crew lose control,

unable to figure out
what has happened to their aircraft.

(BEEPING) We've lost all hydraulics

They struggle to master
100 tons of wide-bodied jet.

Their plane's on fire -
unless they can land soon,

the wing will burn up.
They'll crash and die.

Steady!

(ALARMS SOUNDING)
They're going with too much speed.

They're going too fast -
they may not make the runway.

No-one has ever successfully
done this before.



(EXPLOSION/MACHINE-GUN FIRE)

By November 2003,
the American-led coalition

has been in charge of Iraq for six
months. The Iraqi army is defeated.

Saddam Hussein, the deposed
President, remains in hiding.

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

They're targeting civilians,
both Iraqi and foreign,

to make the country unstable,
perhaps even provoke a civil war.

They have plundered
Iraqi army stores

for every infantry weapon there is -
even surface-to-air missiles.

Baghdad is a very dangerous place.
(MEN CHANTING)

Dawn, on the outskirts of the city,

Claudine Vernier-Palliez,
from the French weekly magazine

Paris Match,
with her photographer Jerome,

is going to a secret meeting
with Iraqi terrorists.

She's after the story
that everyone wants -

Who are they? What do they want?

(MAN SPEAKS IN ARABIC)

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

He called himself Abu Abdallah,
but no-one knew his real name.

(LAUGHS)

(SPEAKS IN FRENCH/TRANSLATOR)
Clearly this man was very determined

to stop at nothing to show Americans
that he wanted no more of them.

At least, blackmailing tactics.

(MAN SPEAKS IN ARABIC)

Baghdad Airport, key
to the US presence in Iraq.

Military planes fly in daily
to supply the troops and to help

rebuild the shattered country.

Because of the threat from Iraqi
terrorists, the US has established

a security zone around the airport,
patrolled by Apache helicopters.

On the tarmac today is one of the few
civilian aircraft to use the airport,

an Airbus A-300
belonging to the courier firm DHL.

They have won the contract
to carry the solders' mail.

Two flights a day shuttle post and
packages in and out of the warzone.

Baghdad Tower, Oscar Oscar Delta
Lima Lima, Airbus A-300 cargo.

If it's clear, we can start..

The Australian Airforce is providing
the air traffic control in Baghdad.

Oscar Oscar Delta Lima Lima,
clear to start.

Before-start check, please.

Start, 2!

Captain Eric Gennotte is Belgian,
38 years old and single.

He realised his dearest ambition
a year ago

when he qualified to Captain
the Airbus A-300.

245.

Valve closed, 610...

Flight Engineer Mario Rofail

lives in Scotland
with his wife and children.

At 54, he's the oldest and most
experienced member of the crew,

a veteran of many danger zones.

Start 1! Level.

The 29-year-old co-pilot,
Steeve Michielsen, is also Belgian.

He's been married just three months.

Cargo airlines and great places
for young pilots to get the hours

and experience they need
to pilot commercial aircraft.

16 clear.

DHL has been flying
into Baghdad for six months.

There's no danger money for crew.

The airport is an oasis of calm
in the middle of a chaotic warzone.

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

When we were crossing
the borders from Kuwait to Iraq,

the ambience in the cockpit
already changed.

It was a kind of stress -
at least, for me.

So, what's going on here?

(SPEAKS IN ARABIC,
MAN TRANSLATES FOR JOURNALIST)

"We're running
a special operation today."

(SPEAKS IN ARABIC)
"You'll see. I'll show you."

(SPEAKS IN ARABIC)

"This is from the old Iraqi Army."

"We have approximately...

28." We got them from
two different Iraqi Army depots."

"We have already fired about 25,
and we only have 3 left."

They are heat-seeking missiles,
equipped with homing devices

which detect infrared emissions
from a plane's engines.

"This is Sam-14, better than Sam-7."
"We don't have so many."

"I think we should use this one
today. It was very good before."

For...? (SPEAKS IN ARABIC)

"We shot down a plane in Nasria
and my fighters recorded 177 deaths.

"And we shot down another plane with
Americans on and killed 70 men."

(VERNIER-PALLIEZ, VOICEOVER)
But no-one had ever heard about this

I didn't believe a word of it.

From all over Baghdad,
you could have seen it.

So I thought
the guy was making it up.

What are you going to do
with this one today?

(SPEAKS IN ARABIC/LAUGHS)

"What do you think?"
"We're gonna shoot down a plane."

(SPEAKS IN ARABIC/LAUGHS)

"I'll show you."
(ABU CONTINUES LAUGHING)

The journalists are getting worried.
What if he's not bluffing after all?

This is not the story they came for.

(SINGING IN ARABIC)

Meanwhile, the terrorist leader,
Abu Abdallah,

appears to have chosen his spot.

He asked us to park our cars
pointing outwards,

so that everybody could
leave in a different direction.

That's when I should have realised
that the bluffing was over.

(MAN SHOUTS IN ARABIC)

The journalists
are now very alarmed.

They cannot leave - they're trapped.

Aha, aha!

(GIVES ORDERS IN ARABIC)

(SHOUTING IN ARABIC)

This is video
shot by the terrorists themselves.

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

(EXPLOSION)

We're struck!

(ALARM SOUNDS)

We've lost green and yellow.

Green and yellow!
'We had three hydraulic systems.'

They are identified by colour,
green, yellow and blue.

Big jets depend on hydraulic power.

Hydraulic fluid runs inside pipes
throughout the aircraft.

When the pilots
move the control column,

pistons push the fluid in the pipes
to climb, descend, or turn the plane.

With no hydraulics, pilots have
no way to control their flight.

The missile has exploded in the wing,

where the pipes filled with
hydraulic fluid are now draining.

It's like driving a car at speed and
suddenly losing the steering wheel.

What do we do, what do we do?

'"What do we do?" What could I
answer? What could I answer to him?'

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

My initial reaction was,
we have to do something.

I asked to the Captain, what shall
we do, any ideas or something?

His initial reaction was,
we have to go back.

A plane can survive with one of the
three hydraulic systems knocked out,

maybe even two, but all three?

None of the controls
will work, period.

Blue is gone.

I think we hit something.

Blue is off.

There's no hydraulics!

All three hydraulic systems gone.
There's nothing left.

The life of the aircraft
is now measured in minutes.

I was trained for everything,
procedures...

Working with them all these years...

So all you needed then
is to keep calm,

common sense, and of course here
where your experience counts...

to save whatever is left there.

We had nothing to come back to...

...even to do or follow.

(CHEERING IN ARABIC)

(BELLS JANGLING/JUBILANT CRIES)

That DHL's in trouble.

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

Scramble the fire engines -
have medevac on standby.

The control columns
have become useless.

Without the crucial hydraulic system,

there's no way to move the controls.

When you are in
this kind of emergency,

The green meter showing zero

and the flight engineer
saying all hydraulics gone,

you are terrified as well.

It was fear.

We had no control
over the aircraft initially.

The aircraft continued to climb
at that time.

To 12,000 feet.

The plane has started
to behave strangely.

It climbs to nearly
3,800 metres, then suddenly

starts to dive of its own accord.

Then it climbs again.

We cannot fly! Back, back!

The cycle repeats itself
over and over again,

like a mad rollercoaster ride.

(BEEPING)

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

They're still airborne,
but somehow they must regain control.

In no way are you proud of yourself.

You look in which mess you were, you
know it was dangerous to come here,

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

We have no controls. Reduce thrust

By moving the throttles to and fro,

perhaps they can flatten out
the huge dives and climbs.

It's all they can think of.

And then I decide to take the
challenge - we have to come back.

There was no training
to fly a plane in this condition.

So from that hour on,
all the books and the procedures

are out of the window.

We have engines?
We can use the thrust.

All they have left are the two
engines, which are undamaged.

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

No airliner has ever done it.

Certainly not this one.
In August 1985,

a Japan Airlines Boeing 747

had suffered a catastrophe
minutes after leaving Tokyo.

The bulkhead at the back
of the cabin burst open.

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

and cut all the hydraulic lines.

Without hydraulic power,
the pilots of the 747

were little more
than passengers themselves.

A jet with 524 people on board

flying over the mountains
of central Japan

was virtually helpless, swaying
in the sky like a drunken bird.

It's really to be considered
a miracle that the pilots were able

to keep the airplane
flying for 30 minutes

after having lost all the hydraulics
and their flight controls.

But it kept shortening,
and eventually worked its way

into the mountains,
then it became impossible

for them to land -
there was no real alternative

for them at all, except to fly

as long as they could and hope for
some miracle which never occurred.

(ALARMS SOUNDING)

When the 747 hit a mountain,
it was the worst single crash

in aviation history. 520 people died.

Can the DHL crew succeed where
the Japanese pilots failed?

The first task is to try to calm
the wild plunging of the aircraft.

With their plane, it turned into
what's called a "phugoid,"

in the vertical roll.

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

then it will climb, pitch up,
then climb, it will slow down,

lose lift... And so it will do this,

and it's very difficult
for the pilots to control that.

They have to do it
by using engine power alone.

The only thing they have left.

They find that if they reduce engine
power, the plane's nose drops,

and they begin to gather speed.

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

and they start to climb.

But they have to learn precisely
when to increase and decrease power.

And there's another complication.

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

and pulling them round to the left
in a wide circle.

One of the most difficult
things to master,

to keep the pitch attitude normal,
was already difficult enough.

Now, on top of this, we had to use
asymmetrical thrusts,

because the airplane was backing
to the left all the time -

it was all a part of the left wing
which was gone.

Back, back!

So they not only have to move
the throttles back and forth

to flatten out
the plane's rollercoaster motion,

but also try to apply more power
to the left engine to compensate

for the damaged wing,
which is causing it to lose lift.

After several minutes
of violent pitching up and down,

the crew manage to flatten out
the flight path.

By now the crew realise that
they've been hit by missiles

somewhere on the left wing.

Their Airbus is the first civilian
aircraft casualty of the war.

I knew we were on fire, that I knew.

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

And also I was really afraid
to be shot a second time.

Their fears are justified.
The terrorist leader,

Abu Adbdallah, is waiting for
a second chance to finish them off.

(YELLING IN ARABIC)

They launched a second missile
that missed the plane this time.

Then he told everyone, "let's go!"

And we all left quickly.

(SHOUTING ORDERS IN ARABIC)

Madame Verneier-Pallier later
came under a storm of criticism

for not doing more to stop the
attack, or at least leave the scene.

I think any journalist
in this situation

would have reacted
exactly as we did.

We have been criticised for not
having said to the group leader

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

"no, sir, we're leaving now."
On the one hand,

if we had said that to him, we
wouldn't have learned what we did.

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

right up to the time they
fired the missile,

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

I thought they were still bluffing.

We were trying to find our way back
with our chauffeur.

We saw that the plane's left wing
was on fire.

It was now turning like this.

It was like in a film - unreal.

It was only when
I could see the plane on fire,

that we thought
of the people on board.

Then we were scared.
I realised the plane could crash -

that it would crash -
and then I started to realise -

why had they done this?

It so happens we were there, we
were filming, we were journalists,

and we were French, so it seems
evident that they had set us up,

By the time we realised this,
it was too late.

Everything had gone too fast.

The crew knows nothing
of the second missile.

(TOWER) Come in 3-1.

(APACHE) You guys see
there's an aircraft on fire?

This remarkable video, seen here
exclusively for the first time,

was shot with the infrared
heat-sensitive camera

of a US Apache attack helicopter.

Apaches routinely patrol
the area around the airport,

watching out for terrorists.

5-4 is observing the aircraft
using its sighting system.

He appears to be on fire on his
far left wing.

The intense heat
of the fire on the Airbus

shows up as a blur on the
helicopter's heat-sensitive camera.

(INDISTINCT)

We have a video -
we're following the aircraft.

There was a helicopter flying,
and he could see that the fire

was not from the engine
but was from the left wing.

So it gave Mario the opportunity
to ask the tower again

if they could still see some flames
or smoke coming from the airplane.

Can you confirm if there's smoke
coming from the aircraft,

or fire or anything like that?
5-4, I can still see smoke and flame

coming from the left tip
of the left wing.

OK, left wing, fire and smoke, huh.

iy That's about it. Thank you.

We were on a heading towards the
airport. We didn't see the airport.

Lower the gear!

Can I take control?
No, I have control.

I have control. Lower the gear!

With no hydraulic power, Mario has to
crank open the landing gear doors

and let the wheels drop down
by gravity alone.

The Captain said, in fact,
we have to land,

and he called for the gear down,

which is quite a normal
thing to do on landing.

But it has an unintended effect.

(NEW ALARM SOUNDING)

Lowering the landing gear has altered
the entire balance of the aircraft,

just when they thought they'd figured
out how to control it.

It causes the nose to point high
in the air, and the speed to fall.

No, no! No, the speed!

It could easily stall and then crash.

I didn't expect that at all.

I saw the aircraft pitching up

and then the speed decreasing,
decreasing, decreasing,

And I turned to my co-pilot
and said no, no.

No!

The nose has gone up, their speed is
falling - they're about to stall.

They have no choice but
to pull back the throttles

to bring the nose back down again.
They're nearly at stall speed.

That would have been the end of it -
we would have fallen out of the sky.

(APACHES) ic Can you film this again?
iy No, I'm looking, but he's way out.

(INDISTINCT)

I was afraid that maybe
we would stall,

and this time it's finished.

(APACHE) Looks like they're gonna
crash on the runway.

They're trying to land on the runway
- they're going belly-up...

(INDISTINCT)

Cautiously, they manage to coax
a bit more speed from the engines.

Lowering the gear brought them
to the brink of disaster,

but now the plane
is easier to control.

The plane miraculously
became more stable afterwards.

That's one of the first factors
which proves how lucky we were.

Let's land.

Tower? Oscar Oscar delta lima lima

Baghdad Tower. Can you make approach
now? Runway is clear for landing.

The Apache helicopter has been joined
by others who are powerless to do

anything but provide information
to the stricken DHL plane.

(INDISTINCT)

Come on, buddy.

We could hear other aeroplanes
talking at the same time.

...They'll crash.

And... that, on its own,
was a bit difficult.

(TOWER) Oscar Oscar delta lima lima.
Could you please clear 33-left?

Oscar oscar delta lima lima,
runway 33-left is available as well

if you need to land there.

OK, keep both runways open for us.

Did you know the tank is empty?

Fuel has been steadily streaming
out of the tanks in the left wing.

Now one of them is empty.
Back, back!

I've got it.

Strong left wing coming up!

Against all the odds,
they've made it back to the airport.

An incredible feat of flying.

They begin making
preparations to land.

Which runway?
We use 33-right, I think.

Lima, lima. Go ahead.

Could you please declare
a full emergency -

We are landing this flight
without fuel.

Oscar Lim lima, all available
assistance is on the field.

Everyone is on full alert.
OK, thank you very much -

and no more talk.

(APACHE) He's pretty stressed!

But on the brink of success,
it begins to unravel.

At that time, I realised
that we were a little too high

to come in and land
in the situation we were.

That's what I thought too -
we were too high and too near.

We must land. We are too close -
we need a long file.

Steeve got a very important point
here. And I think it was...

...really our saviour.

Steeve has given his Captain
news he doesn't want to hear.

He can't land.
They're too high and too close.

If they attempt a steep descent,
they'll bury it in the runway.

They'll have to turn around,
fly away from the airport for 37km,

turn again, and come back on a long
final approach, slowly descending.

If we hadn't done this 20 miles,
we'd have been sitting there forever

I mean, till we dropped to the sky.
You can't make it - it's impossible.

Keep the speed up,
keep the speed up!

I try - I do the best I can.

Then I realise they were right.

We have to go long file.

But for the last 13 minutes,
the wing has been on fire.

Do they have enough time?

20 miles, finally. OK.

(APACHES)
iy He's still a long way to go.

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

Time is running out.
The fire is eating up the left wing.

They're still heading away
from the airport,

then they have to turn
and make a 37km approach.

Can they land before the wing fails?

If we'd stayed another
15 minutes in the air,

with that fire still burning,

maybe the tip of the wing
would have broken off, and again,

that would also have been disaster.

The main structural spars
give the wing its strength.

The missile has made a 5-metre-long
crack in the rear spar.

Too much stress,
and it will snap like a twig.

There's another danger:

fuel is streaming out of the
punctured tanks on the left wing.

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

We were controlling the bank
and the pitch of the aeroplane

using the two engines,
so if we'd lost one engine,

the we couldn't do anything
with the other engine,

so the end result
would have been disaster.

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

Now they have some control
over the plane. But the prospects

for a safe landing are not good.

This is the closest any commercial
jet has got to a safe landing

with no hydraulics.
In 1989, in the United States,

the crew of this United DC-10
lost all their controls

after an engine blew up and turbine
blades shredded the hydraulic pipes.

The pilots managed
to regain some control,

moving the throttles backwards
and forwards like the DHL crew.

There were 296 people on board.

But at the last minute,
as they approach

the small provincial airport
of Sioux City in Iowa - disaster.

(INDISTINCT PANICKED SHOUTING)

(ALARMS SOUNDING)

Of the 296 people on board, 111 died.

So, within four years,
two major airliners had crashed

because a loss of hydraulics
had crippled the planes,

killing 631 people. (SIRENS WAILING)

In its investigation report
on the Sioux City disaster,

the US National Transportation Safety
Board asked for urgent research

to find ways of controlling big jets
that had lost their hydraulics.

but over Baghdad, 14 years later,
the DHL crew only have their wits

to help them as they try to land.

I remember the story of the DC10
of Sioux City,

that it has been done before.

The only control we still
have left in the cockpit

was training.

Nothing else.

The crew are now 28km from the
airport, getting close to where they

will turn in order to make their
long, final approach to the runway.

15.2.

16... Now we turn right. Not yet

This is where experience counts now.

And you have to rely
on what you know.

We could be sure that we were gonna
be able to make it to the airport -

but we were absolutely not sure that

we would be able to
make it to the runway.

16.5...

Now we turn. 17 miles.

Now we turn.

The only way they can turn is
by applying more power

to the left engine to make them
go right, and vice-versa.

They're swinging round to the right
trying to keep the plane steady

and descend all at the same time
using nothing but the engines.

Airport at 340 - come round.
Now 320.

Speed? Ten knots and stable -
keep speed up. Yes, yes.

1,000 feet.

500 feet.

200 feet.

Turn now.

Against all their instincts,
they'll have to keep the speed up

on landing, or the nose will drop
and they'll crash.

They should be landing
at around 300km per hour,

but they're coming in
100km per hour faster.

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

As they reach 120 metres,
the hot air from the ground

and strong wind blowing across their
flight path upset all their plans.

With the wind coming from the left
and the turbulence,

we were lifting to the right. That's
where the airport building was.

Adjust my speed!

As the plane approaches the runway,
the nose is pointing dangerously low,

and the left wing is dropping.

Come on, buddy.

They're carrying too much speed.
They could overrun the runway.

Keep the speed up, we are
going left! Yes, I increase!

We got additional landing
maybe off the runway.

They're landing 33-left, fire trucks
on standby, medevac on standby.

(SIRENS WAIL)

(INDISTINCT)

Steady. Steady!

You are approaching
the end of your life.

You realise it.

OK!

Oof!

(APACHE) Oh!

Off runway!

Aaah!

He's just come off the runway.
That's what's left of him.

(PANTING)

The DHL Airbus has managed to land
through an incredible feat of flying.

But their troubles are not over.

Nice landing, wow!

Shall we evacuate?

Evacuate. Evacuate.

(SIRENS WAILING)

A final irony. After getting safely
to the ground against all the odds,

one more unforeseen danger.

The fuel will blow.

Hey, guys, don't move!

That area has unexploded ordinance,
do not move!

What's that? He's saying there
might be bombs here.

I don't believe this.

We're coming to get you!

The area is still littered
with unexploded bombs and shells

left over from the battle to
capture the airport from Saddam's
men.

When we get to you,
I'm gonna back up,

and you gotta follow in our tracks.

We're gonna get you out of here.

You walk right
in my wheel tracks, OK?

(TRUCK BEEPING)

Keep going. Keep going -
it's not much further now.

Now, for the first time, the crew
can see the damage for themselves.

They've survived the unsurvivable.

No crew has ever successfully landed
such a badly-damaged airliner.

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

But the remarkable thing is,
had they known it,

the technology had already been
invented to save any pilot

in this desperate situation.

The DHL pilots have managed to
fly and land a plane

without any flying controls.
It's the first time it's happened.

Two earlier occasions,
near Tokyo and Sioux City, Iowa,

ended with the loss
of over 600 lives.

In 1989, NASA began to investigate
ways to land crippled aircraft

using only throttle controls.

Engineers and pilots
came up with software

that could cope
with total hydraulic failure.

It's called PCA,
for Propulsion-Controlled Aircraft.

The PCA concept is simple.

Pilots tell the aircraft's
flight management computer

what they want to do -
turn, climb, descend -

but instead of sending
those commands down hydraulic lines

to the control surfaces, the computer
orders the engines alone to do it.

To test this software,
this ND-11 aircraft is landing

with no hydraulics
and using engine thrust alone.

The pilot is not
moving the throttles.

The PCA software
is doing it all for him.

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

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

to a normal landing.

I believe that the DHL incident
has revived interest

in Propulsion-Controlled Aircraft
systems as an augment to the systems

that we have in today's aircraft.

It would certainly
mitigate the damage

that could have been done
to this aircraft and it certainly

could mitigate the damage done to an
aircraft carrying 5-600 people.

One of the enthusiasts for
the PCA system is Captain Denny Fish,

one of the pilots who survived
the Sioux City DC-10 crash.

This is absolutely an amazing
piece of equipment -

what they've done and achieved
to get the success rate we have,

the survivability that we now have,

with modern aircraft completely
controlled on hydraulics,

to have occur again
and have this on board the aircraft

is a very warm feeling as a pilot.

(ALARMS SOUNDING) Blue is gone.

There are no hydraulics!

America's Federal Aviation
Administration researched PCA,

but soon abandoned it.It says
the risk of losing all hydraulics

is too low to make systems
like PCA worthwhile.

The FAA's conclusion
was that these events are so rare

as to not require
the mandate of an additional system.

Aha, aha!

But of course, they did not consider
the event of,

the possibility of a surface-to-air
weapons attack on an aircraft.

The DHL is the first plane in Iraq
to be hit by surface-to-air missile,

but in recent years,
the threat of terrorist-controlled

shoulder-launched anti-aircraft
missiles has been growing.

There had been
roughly 30-odd incidents

of commercial aircraft being
attacked by man-portable

surface-to-air missiles
leading up the DHL one.

What makes the risk of missile attack
in Iraq so serious is that,

for months, nobody was guarding the
abandoned depots of the Iraqi army,

leaving terrorists
free to help themselves

to millions of dollars worth of arms.

We could not believe there are
weapon caches everywhere in Iraq.

In my opinion,
they also have many missiles.

There's widespread fear these terror
weapons could soon be targeting

passenger airliners
all over the world.

The US govt's
Department of homeland Security

is spending over $100million
on research to adapt

military counter-missile technology
for civilian airliners.

It is inevitable that commercial
aircraft will have to be fitted

at sometime with laser
and infrared jamming systems.

The infrared jammer
will confuse the seeker missile,

whereas the laser jammer

will direct a pulse into the seeker

and burn out
the seeker of the missile.

Singapore Airlines,
Qantas Airlines...

they're all looking to install
something into their aircraft.

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

the President's aircraft in the USA,

and the King of Jordan's fleet...

they're all fitted.

Terrorism is with us today

and will always be with us
for the rest of our lives.

It's impossible to defeat terrorism.

But what is possible
is to control terrorism

at a commercially-acceptable level.

If we don't do that...

Then... there's no future for us.

But miraculously,
without any of this equipment,

the DHL crew had brought their plane
to a successful landing.

It's the only confirmed
occasion in history

when a missile has exploded
on a large civilian airliner

which has then
landed without crashing.

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

It was a good time
to say goodbye to aviation.

As I said, I'd been flying
for 30 years,

and um, clear record.
Even to the last minute.

We were lucky, but also we were -
we fight to survive.

I learnt some things about life,
maybe, but I don't think

it makes me a better pilot.

(APPLAUSE)

The three DHL crew have received
some of the highest awards

that the civilian aviation community
has to offer in recognition

of an unprecedented achievement.

Teamwork was absolute the key factor

for bringing the airplane back to
the ground with all 3 people alive.

Subtitled by BSkyB.