the Scandinavian star is an ocean-going ferry for 19 years she carries thousands of passengers and vehicles across the seas until a routine crossing turns deadly for 482 people in just 45 minutes now using cutting-edge computer technology we reveal exactly what went wrong disasters don't just happen they're a chain of critical events unravel the fateful decisions in those final seconds from disaster Norway Oslo Friday April 6th 1990 it's the start of the Easter holidays and after a brand new renovation the 142 meter long cruising fairy Scandinavian star has just joined the popular route between Norway and Denmark she's due to depart from Oslo at 7:30 p.m. carrying cars and 383 passengers and 99 crew but the loading of the ship falls behind schedule waiting in a car on the dock with their family is Heidi Jensen she was just 11 years old we heard about the delay so my mother and brother went on board while my dad and I wait till he'd been a sailor and I had lots of silly questions to ask him I asked him about the lifeboats and if he had been in one and what it was like and I remember he said he wouldn't recommend despite the delay the passengers are looking forward to an uneventful 13-hour voyage a restful week beckons for yen Hassim his pregnant wife Christine and their one and a half year old son halvor we decided to go on Easter vacation to have some fun we were looking forward to we were expecting that summer to be very busy spring was in the air there was a nice atmosphere the weather was clear perfect conditions for the 12,500 ton Scandinavian star built in 1971 she's a 9 deck vessel deck 3000 trucks in the center and is lined around its edges by two decks of passenger cabins but most of the passenger cabins are on deck 5 there are three decks above these with lounges shops a restaurant bar and disco these are put to good use on a route well known for its duty-free party atmosphere the bridge housing the ship's main controls is on deck 8 on duty that night is Hugo Larsen the passengers are in safe hands he's been a ship's captain for 22 years [Music] 9:45 p.m. the mooring lines are cast off and the Scandinavian star finally gets underway 2 hours 15 minutes late but on board all is not as it should be the interior renovation is unfinished and there's confusion over the simplest tasks Yan Hassan has already had a mix-up over his cabin number and at reception the problems continue the necklace then the key we were given within the right one so I had to go all the way back to reception again to get a new key even an 11 year old can see that all is not right on the ship the crew didn't understand Norwegian or English or anything and were running about looking very stressed but soon the disorganization seems little more than an inconvenience they put the problems behind them and begin to enjoy the restaurant bar and other facilities on board I was looking forward to going to the tax-free shop and doing some shopping it's the sort of thing girls that age and joy I didn't understand the cabin it's midnight the younger passengers like Heidi are in bed yawn huh Sam is restless and leaves his wife and young son to sleep in their cabin on Deck five son Howell was only there than I needed to sleep so I walked around the ship a bit just observing people in situations and as soon as if people were settling in the Scandinavian star is now at her cruising speed of 21 knots the sea is calm the night clear the gentle motion of the ship promises a good night's sleep for the passengers already in their cabins yet for some of them their fate has already been sealed [Music] 2 a.m. the Scandinavian star has been underway for four and a quarter hours those passengers who are still awake are having a good time in the ship's bar and disco on deck 8 but five decks below a small fire breaks out in a corridor on deck free the fire takes hold and gain strength it creeps up the walls and along the ceilings the passengers on the decks above sleep on a party by 209 a.m. the fire reaches into a stairwell and begins to climb through the ship's interior setting fire to deck four about still none of the passengers have any idea that beneath their feet the fire is eating its way through the ship a neither does captain Larson up on the bridge of the Scandinavian star despite the smoke and flames of the growing Inferno no one has yet seen the fire and raised the alarm a group of young athletic students are enjoying the freedom of the ship on their way to a training camp one of them is Vita skilling says he was just 14 years old for a 14 year old travelling without parents to Denmark along with the rest of the gang it was very exciting and clearly not having to go to bed when our parents would have told us to was great so we could explore the ship's facilities like the disco ball and slot machines to 11 a.m. suddenly Vida and his friends noticed smoke pouring from a stairwell on deck 5 we sought comedy coke we saw smoke rising from the floor below so we went straight down to reception the one done salvia hot is on duty at reception on deck 5 first they didn't take us seriously but then they saw the smoke following us thick I could barely make them out and I stood there thinking we can't deal with this we're going straight to hell so I called the bridge to call captain Larsson and tell him there's a fire raging on this stone it's 2:15 a.m. and finally 15 minutes after the fire has ignited captain Hugo Larson gets his first warning simultaneously warning alarms which only sound on the bridge go off as other people see smoke and raise the alarm by hitting the emergency switches but captain larsen has no idea of the scale of the fire every decision he makes every turn of events over the next 30 minutes will affect the lives of the 482 people on board so fire has broken out on the passenger ship Scandinavian star two of the eight decks are ablaze [Music] and 482 people are in grave danger 2:15 a.m. fire alarms go off on the bridge to warm the captain on most ships this is the only place they can be heard captain Larson immediately begins to close fire doors one by one using the remote controls on the bridge this is standard safety procedure on a ship to stop the fire spreading through the interior this course of action will turn out to be a vital clue in the investigation that follows next he sounds the ship's general alarm to alert everyone on board that there is a fire this warning signal should be audible throughout the ship 2:20 a.m. 3 decks below the captain on deck 5 yen Hasan is woken by his pregnant wife they're sharing a cabin with their one and a half year old son elbow it's a sail Christina and then I see Christine leave the cabin and I pick up halvah on my arm Milo Baughman the moment I get out into the corridor I realized I've come straight from a deep sleep into something I really cannot comprehend Annika standing by because I cannot see anything the smoke everywhere I go I can't even you see the walls in the corridor all yang can do is grab his son and run through the thick smoke trusting his memory of the ships layout he can't even see his wife Christine who has left the cabin just seconds before him by now the fire is a raging inferno and it spits out a fireball that races across an open area from one side of the ship to the other on Deck five both sides an hour blaze the fireball passes only metres from the closed door of the cabin where 11 year old Heidi Jensen and her family are sleeping the corridor outside is almost engulfed by the flames screaming and staring into a wall of flames there was lots of crackling it was horrible and then my dad gave me a push in the back and I ran that was the worst running away from the flames and when I got upstairs frightened Heidi runs straight into a group of fleeing passengers who lead her to the relative safety of the lifeboats on Dec 7 the fire is now burning on decks three four and five the staircase acts as a chimney sucking the fire upwards it continues to climb igniting the restaurant on deck 6 coughing frantically yawn Hassim manages to find his way out into the fresh air at the back of the ship on deck 5 but his pregnant wife is missing leaving his son with others jaan tries desperately to find her I attempted to go back down the stairs again with the intention of looking for Christine in there was met with such a mighty burst a smoke that came up the stairs i remembers of thought occurring to me but if i do not turn around and go back up now 2:24 am on the bridge of the blazing Scandinavian star on deck 8 captain Larsen has no accurate information on where the fire has reached or how fast it is spreading realizing the situation is out of control he sets his VHF radio to the international emergency frequency channel 16 he sends out a mayday to any ships in the area it's the most extreme distress signal at sea to make it easier to launch the lifeboats captain Larson also cuts the engines the Scandinavian star is now adrift approximately thirty kilometers from the nearest port the circle in Sweden by 2:30 a.m. the ventilation is off another safety procedure unfortunately this allows smoke to invade the passenger cabins all over the ship through the door vents the passengers trapped in the cabins are in a terrifying situation they have nowhere to run in desperation those awake seek refuge from the smoke anywhere they can in the closets in the showers but there is nowhere to hide the ship's crew are in chaos there are no clear emergency procedures for them to follow only a few of the crew thing to put on breathing apparatus they go into the choking smoke-filled interior searching for survivors one of them is staff captain Kirsten Hansen he described the awful scene to the ship's receptionist saw the echo huh he had a terrible experience down there one mother he said had sat with her back to the room holding her two children they were dead I don't he wanted to take her out but she said no let me be no no I want to die with my children to me in the barn and then she died for 2:50 a.m. 25 minutes after receiving the made a distress signal the ferry stennis saga is the first ship to arrive on the scene one of her crew reaches for his video camera and records the site that greets them this is the actual video that he recorded the waters around the blazing ship are filled with drifting lifeboats the fire is completely out of control the captain of the steno saga Leonard Nordgren describes the scene where the whole of the stern ablaze we could hear people screaming for us and we could also hear the noise of the fire itself a crackling sound a bit like popcorn the flames were 12 to 15 meters high other vessels join the steno saga and between them they begin the painstaking job of retrieving the drifting lifeboats [Music] it's 3:20 a.m. smoke fills the bridge of the Scandinavian star where captain Larsson stands he tells captain Nordgren on the steno saga that he must abandon ship Nordgren knows that the captain should be the last to leave his ship and he wants to be sure this is a recording of their actual conversation I specifically asked him if everybody had been evacuated and he answered in his own words as far as I know I think everyone has got away a la calma the burg but the truth is that the Scandinavian Stars captain has made a fatal mistake more than 30 people remain they're trapped outside at the rear of deck 5 their captain has abandoned they can't reach the lifeboats on deck 7 the fire is blocking their way the water is too cold to jump yon Hassim is trapped and desperate to protect his baby son from the inferno a very heavy smoke rose from all the openings as a ship fire had an overwhelming energy to Vilnius the wooden eggy we heard what sounded like deep thunder rolling inside the ship rescue boats spot them and send lifeboats to the rear of the blazing ship yon escapes by climbing precariously down ropes with his young son strapped to him at this point the rescuers finally begin to believe that all the passengers are saved 5:30 a.m. it's at this moment that the first emergency services enter the Scandinavian star nine firefighters from Gothenburg Sweden are winched onto the deck their leader is fire chief in Barbarin Forsch when we make contact with the ship the sight made our hair stand on end it was an incredible sight the sky was blazing in red against the black horizon to the west 7:00 a.m. the firefighters have been on board for an hour and a half searching the ship for survivors they reached the rear section of deck 5 and are horrified to discover dead bodies everywhere it was like the gates of hell people were lying all over the place in the corridors we broke down the doors we could get into other places and counted 71 babies in their autistic the final victim count at the rear of deck 5 is 76 nearly half the people who died succumb in this one small area what made it so dangerous survivors are taken by rescue boats the ports in Sweden Norway and Denmark people become separated in the confusion and many don't even know if their family and loved ones are safe in a different port or left behind on the burning ship this unique news footage shows Heidi ensign and her family as they arrived at Sandefjord Norway for her father an ex sailor seen here carrying her younger brother it's all too much reaction he started crying I think he began to take in what had happened it are not sunk in before but when I saw him reacting in that way I started thinking it was something big we had experienced something awful that the firefighters on the Scandinavian star continued to scour the smoking ferry while its totalus kill in Sweden as they widen their search the number of dead continues to rise Yan Hassan and his young son reach land there is still no news of his pregnant wife Christine the listen for stock it's almost too much for the human mind to cope women's you see that she come out someplace else had she been picked up by another craft old why do secret after a week of agony the police deliver the awful news so okay sells Christine's casket and our little son was as I've mentioned pregnant we then brought to the churchyard in Oscar where we live and placed there christine Hussam leaves the same cabin as Yan at the same time yet he lives and she dies she's one of a staggering 158 victims that lose their lives in just 45 minutes sabor the Scandinavian star now by rewinding the events of that fateful day and by going deep into the investigation we can reveal what truly happened how did the fire start why did so many people die in one small section of the ship advanced computer simulation will take us when no camera can go into the heart of the disaster zone a team of Scandinavian experts is assembled to investigate the disaster using their data we can piece together the deadly chain of events to find out what caused this terrible tragedy this is their actual footage of the aftermath how does this devastating fire start to find out they first have to track down where it began the point of origin leading the fire investigation team is the head of the Norwegian fire Research Institute shell Schmidt Paterson what we were supposed to do is to describe the development or the fire what started the fire at what time it started very started it's not necessarily easy to find the origin so you have to go backwards the whole thing is a puzzle the investigators track the path of the fire damage through the interior of the wrecked ship it's like playing the fire backwards leading them back towards the ignition site the point of origin the trail ends in a corridor on deck three they know that the answer to what starts this devastating blaze must lie in the wreckage of this corridor seen here in their original video they believe a pattern of burn damage marks the exact spot where the fire started and they discover traces of linen there they conclude that the fire was started in a pile of bedding but what sets the bedding on fire there was no electrical equipment there was no heating from the the Cheney case and there was no hydraulic oil system in that corridor we found no equipment or anything that could have naturally started the fire could it have been set accidentally by a passenger or crew member they discovered that the passenger cabins on deck 3 were not in use the deck should have been empty they're mystified the truth will only become clear when the investigators unravel all the secrets of the fatal blaze on the Scandinavian star - am using forensic science Schmidt Peterson's team calculate that this is the earliest start time for the fire 45 minutes to disaster the investigation now focuses on the escalation of the blaze how did a fire in a simple pile of bedding turn into a massive blaze but sweeps through the 142 meter long Scandinavian star a fatal fire tears through the fairy Scandinavian star it kills 158 men women and children and is one of the worst maritime disasters in Scandinavian history using advanced computer graphics based on the official report we go deep into the investigation to unravel the deadly chain of events what started this awful fire remains unclear fire investigators do establish that 2:00 a.m. is the earliest possible moment that the fire began when a pile of bedding on deck 3 ignited but the investigators are puzzled how did this small fire grow into a massive blaze to fully investigate the fire on the Scandinavian star and unravel its secrets they have to recreate the fatal blaze but this time in the laboratory so we had to make a full-scale experiment and with the same type record or as we had aboard a ship because that was important to the development of the fire and with the same material used everything the same the betting fire alone would have burned out with the ship's steel walls and fireproof asbestos lining the fire should have had nowhere to go and when they examined the burnt-out interior they find the asbestos boards although buckled have not burnt if it isn't the lining boards themselves what is the fuel source for the fatal blaze something is fueling the fire as it races through the ship the investigators are mystified they dig deeper what they discover is that the decorative white finish that covers the asbestos boards has completely disappeared but this thin lining is barely one point six millimeters thick little more than the thickness of a CD we have a material that is one point six millimeters thick that is not very much so the first thing we did is to investigate how is it ignited what is needed to ignite it how much heat will it release Schmidt Peterson's experiments reveal that the wall lining is in fact extremely flammable calculations show that burning a 1 metre square piece of this lighting turns out to be roughly the equivalent of throwing a liter and a half of petrol into the place the main fuel for the fatal fire is this thin lining it's only job is to make the ship's interior look good but the lining is so flammable the fire proofing of asbestos is useless thirty-six minutes to go based on their experiments Schmidt Patterson's groups calculate that this corridor lining is not burning out of control they now know that it fuels the fire but how does it get beyond the corridor on deck three why don't the ships fireproof bulkheads and fire doors contain the blaze in the corridor we have two buckets on the ship one here and one here and they're supposed to divide the ship into three different compartments giving the result that a fire within within one compartment should not spread to the other compartment fire doors allow passengers through the bulkheads and subdivide each compartment to contain a fire but all this is useless if the fire doors are not shut on the bridge captain Larson closes fire doors by remote controls in areas where fire alarms are activated but on the Scandinavian star the passenger area fire alarms are not automatic they can only be activated manually it means that doors are only shut in areas where people see the blaze and press the alarm button of course in the area whether the fire started there was no one pushing any button so the doors were kept open thirty-six minutes to go the fire passes through the open fire door and into the rest of the ship but what puzzles investigators is that the fire seems to reach deck five more swiftly than it should and when it gets there it roars across the ship in a fireball what makes it spread so rapidly through the interior eyewitness testimony is a key part of unraveling the chain of events twenty-five minutes Kristin Blinn Heim stumbles out of his cabin on deck four towards the nearby staircase but in Port make us we were only a couple of meters from your stairwell smoke rolling down stairs but hot smoke should rise not fall how can Kristin Blinn Heim see smoke traveling down the stairwell that is puzzling that the fires going like that so we were bit not surprised but they maybe thought that that was weird investigators follow the trail of the smoke and fire damage down hill it leads them to this store on deck three where the passenger area joins the car there [Music] this photograph from the investigation shows a pattern of fire damage which leads them to believe that the door was partly opened during the fire a further clue comes from the scorched van parked right by the door this damage can only have been caused by hot gases coming through the door and burning the vehicle the car deck is ventilated by a powerful fans designed to suck dangerous vehicle exhaust fumes out of the ship but with the fire door to the car deck open during the blaze these fans are literally sucking the fire through the ship the fire starts in a corridor and deck tree within 20 minutes the air flow sucks the fire up the staircase to dect by the conditions there transform it into a fireball that roars across the open space on Deck five to the stairwell on the other side of the ship the smoke and flame is then sucked down this stairwell through the open fire door and into the car deck by the time the ventilation fans are all off ten minutes later it's too late but what is still a mystery to the investigators is why 39 victims at the back of deck 5 Evon to get out of their cabins they focus on how the passengers are alerted the main warning comes when they hear the ship's alarm surely this would have alerted the passengers the team investigates the layout of the cabins and the positions of the alarm sirens they discover that for 59% of the occupied cabins in the rear of deck 5 the sound level of the alarm is less than 57 decibels substantially quieter than inside a rolls-royce traveling down a freeway the explanation for the sleeping passengers is simple they probably never heard the alarm it was just too quiet expert fire training officer Chris Harris explains why it starts off very loud and it starts travelling down the alleyway and it has to turn left or right through another alleyway and it carries on and on on but of course it's passing the cabin doors where the passengers are so is restricted again plus of course the ship being a living ship we have inbred sounds all the time the ventilation the engine noise with the alarm masked by the distance the sounds of the ventilation and the engines the passengers in those cabins probably never even woke up but 37 of the victims at the rear of deck 5 in the corridors outside their cabins these people must either have heard the commotion or the alarm why did they fail to escape what mysterious breaks in the chain determined who lived and who died a routine cruise on the ferry Scandinavian star turns deadly when a massive fire on board leaves 158 people dead with 30 minutes left the alarm sounds and the people in the rear of deck 5 37 bodies are found in the corridors the an Hassan's wife Christine is one of those victims and yet Yin escaping from the same cabin at the same time survives what did they do differently investigators are mystified they study the layout of the ship for clues about the mysterious deaths owned at the rear of deck 5 what they find is horrified fire safety engineer professor Eadie Galia explains Scandinavian star had a particular problem on Dec 5 towards the art section you would find your walked along this corridor is a dead end and the exit is just back from the end of the corridor on the other side of the vessel you're at a similar dead end and then to get out you need to come back life or death lies in the instantaneous decisions people make as they struggle to escape from the confusing maze of the blazing Scandinavian Stars interior Yan Hassan carrying his young son halvor turns right when he reaches these corridors the body of his pregnant wife Christine is found to the left she couldn't find an exit in the maze of corridors he turns right she turns left that tiny decision means he and Hal bore live and Christine dies the investigators now understand what the victims faced trying to escape from the Scandinavian star there is just one question about their fate that is unexplained what actually kills them despite the fires ferocity the bodies found at the rear of deck five and not burnt so if it isn't the flames what is it that claims the lives of so many victims the investigators attention is drawn to the thick smoke generated by the burning wall linings that filled the interior their experiments reveal the awful fact that the smoke on the Scandinavian star is particularly nasty not only does it contain carbon monoxide but something equally deadly hydrogen cyanide hydrogen cyanide is a rapid killer and if you know some history you know that that was the same gas Hitler used against the Jews in the concentration camps so it's it's a it's a real killer when hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide are inhaled together the combination is devastating of the 158 victims all but ten perish by breathing the deadly smoke at some stage before death is coming you are incapacitated you're unable to move and then you're trapped and then death is coming and all that is taking only a few minutes in this case within 8 to 12 minutes of the start of the fire computer simulation suggests that the amount of toxic smoke on deck 5 was already reaching a fatal level [Music] we reckoned that to when the captain got a message over of the fire I saw this light comes up on this board the situation was critical already for the people on board once the toxic smoke reaches the passenger areas the timeline becomes less exact the victims did not survive to record them 45 minutes after the fire starts Schmidt Peterson's group calculate that the disaster is complete the fire is out of control the interior filled with deadly smoke all of the victims in the cabins and the corridors have died trapped in their cabins or lost in the interior the first rescue vessel the Stennis saga is still five minutes away but investigators remain puzzled by one thing in an emergency situation the crew are responsible for the safety of passengers they're supposed to be trained to deal with emergencies why do they not perform better on the Scandinavian star during the disaster the investigators check the ship's logs and registers and interview the crew then they unearth the truth the seeds of the disaster were planted more than two weeks before the fatal fire the Scandinavian star was rushed into service the ship had only been in Scandinavian waters for 15 days before that she'd been doing a completely different job working as a casino cruise ship more than 5,500 kilometers away in Miami with a different crew the ship's management had scheduled just ten days to convert the ship from a floating casino cruise ship to a passenger ferry and train an almost completely new crew it's not nearly long enough as master mariner captain Emma tiller explains I will not consider two weeks reasonable to train the crew up on a new vessel with a new layout I would consider someone in the region of six to eight weeks to be more reasonable not one single fire drill had been carried out even more disturbingly they discovered that many of the new crew spoke neither English nor any of the Scandinavian languages a fact that many of the passengers had spotted before the catastrophe later in the events I realized that many of the crew were Portuguese Norwegian and to some extent not English I became confusion in the multilingual crew is a problem on board from the very start of the ferry's journey when the catastrophe happens the crew organization simply falls apart as Leonard Norgren captain of the rescue ship Stennis saga explains it turned out later that so much was missing before both in crew training and conditions on boards that they were absolutely not ready to go into service the Scandinavian star was simply an accident waiting to happen yet none of this explains the final key question how did the fire start in the first place [Music] investigators of work type power fire races through the Scandinavian star causing catastrophe now they focus on how the fire started they make a chilling discovery it isn't the first fire onboard the ship that night 15 minutes before the fatal blaze there was another fire Kristyn bling Haim witnessed it firsthand it happens right outside his cabin I tear the door open and see flames from the floor too high up under the ceiling so I dive to the bed tear off my bed clothes and run out into the corridor and throw the move the flames and stamp on them to put the flames out as if a clearly the captain is made aware of the fire and it's promptly extinguished kristen is told everything is under control but it isn't no one checks for another fire no alarms are sounded no fire doors are shut until it's too late little evidence of the first fire remains but the official report concludes that it was probably started by a naked flame and Schmidt Patterson's investigators failed to find any evidence that the second fire could have started accidentally well that led us to the likely conclusion that that this was a set on purpose without match or a lighter someone set the disaster fire it was arson as to who the arsonist is we may never know when police begin to go through the backgrounds of the victims they find that one of the Danish passengers has a police record he had four previous convictions for Arsenal and police suspicion turns towards him however the Scandinavian star had two sister ships when she worked in the u.s. all three of them had suffered major fires in the seven years preceding the disaster [Music] in fact only two years before the fatal voyage there was a major incident on the Scandinavian star herself when her engine room caught fire the ship was heavily criticised at the time by the us accident investigators the National Transportation Safety Board one of their main findings lack of a common language amongst the crew exactly what the Scandinavian investigators conclude a deadly chain of events leads to the disaster a break anywhere in the chain could have prevented or reduced the catastrophe if the crew had been better prepared more passengers might have been evacuated if the captain had responded effectively to the first arson attack the second fire might have been caught sooner if someone had been on deck three to report the fire it would never have gained such a deadly hold if it been smoke or heat alarms in the passenger areas the fire could have been caught when it was still small if all the fire doors have been shut immediately the fire would have been trapped and unable to spread if the alarm had been louder more of the sleeping passengers would have been roused in the rear of deck 5 if the walls had been fitted with a fireproof lining that did not produce poisonous smoke but none of these things happen and 158 people perished in a part of the world that prides itself on its attention to safety this fire shakes Scandinavians to the core it's one of their worst maritime tragedies the official report condemns the ferry operating company and the captain captain Larson and the ferry company's owner and Shore manager are all given six-month jail terms for their negligence for the survivors the devastating effects of the tragedy remain the dreams of 11 year old Heidi Hansen are disturbed for years I kept imagining that there was fire around me around my feet I thought there were flames everywhere I was in one room and imagined next door was full of flames yawn hussam had to bring up his young son alone he remarried 12 years later he since become an expert in safety at sea and devotes much of his time attempting to improve safety on ships operating across the globe the issue of ships with inadequate safety is international so the Calypso you could be traveling in Europe you could be in the USA and you could at any time find yourself in the same situation as it was all because this problem has not been resolved but out of the disaster come some lessons and some hope even if the Scandinavian star have had better equipment if she'd been more safely designed the passengers would still have been at the mercy of substandard training and a crew that didn't even speak the same language this was the lesson of the Scandinavian star the accident was influential in the development of new international safety codes these faced more responsibility on the owners and operators of ships to make sure their crews are properly trained and ready for emergencies the hope is that the tragedy of the Scandinavian star may make journeys at sea a little safer for every passenger [Music]