damage on a massive scale. huge structures reduced to rubble in seconds. ♪ ♪ >> watch it! >> crashing to the ground. >> i've never seen anything like this before. it's terrifying. trains demolish trucks in their path. >> i was stunned. i thought, what is he doing? don't take a chance like that. ♪ ♪ >> houses crumble. i had never seen anything like that before. >> wow!

>> a factory erupts. >> wow! >> it looks like some kind of a nuclear detonation. >> and fire rains down from the sky. stories of chaos, survival and coura courage. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ "caught on camera: total destruction." ooh! that's going to be loud! >> a fire at a plant creates a shock wave. minutes later there,'s an even bigger explosion.

>> wow! >> it was the biggest explosion that i've ever been on in my career. >> may 4th, 1988, henderson, nevada, just ten miles from the las vegas strip. dennis todd is doing routine repair work on a tv transmission power on the top of black mountain when he notices an extremely bright fire down below. >> we looked down and saw this fire with this brilliance, like a fourth of july sparkler. unlike anything i've seen before. >> the fire is so bright because it's fueled by a highly volatile chemical used to make rocket fuel. todd grabs his video camera and begins recording. >> i set it on a tripod, pointed it down at the fire and went back to eating my lunch. >> the fire has broken out at the pacific engineering and production company, known as pep con with the chemical is fabricated. >> the solid rocket motors of the shuttles that take off are

filled with ammonia perchlorate. you have a material that in this case can really detonate, explode. pepkon employees knowing just how explosive their factory is run for their lives. >> the employees know what is happening and they all took off. they self-evacuated across the desert. >> before firefighters arrive, there's a massive explosion. >> oh! >> that's going to be loud. >> i saw the explosion about five or six seconds before we actually heard it. [ explosion ] up to this point, that was the biggest explosion i had ever seen. >> firefighters on the way to the scene are stopped in their tracks by the blast and back off. >> the fire chief was driving and got the window blown out. both groups of people were slightly injured. >> we could see the shockwave coming across the desert and we

just ducked down, tried to get under the dash. but it was too low. the windshield came out and caught me in the forehead. >> others ten miles away in las vegas hear and feel the shockwave. >> we honestly thought that there had been an airplane crash or something like that. >> but the biggest blast is yet to come. several additional fire departments respond. >> we were en route to the disaster site. and as i started realizing the magnitude of the disaster that unfolded, the thought occurred to me that i could lose my life here today. >> the chemicals aren't the only combustible material fueling the out-of-control fire. underneath the facility is a natural gas line that ruptures and ignites, making the blaze virtually unfightable. fire officials evacuate a five-mile radius around the plant. >> oh, there's another one.

they had all of that fuel stored out there in barrels. >> and another one! >> geez! >> then the fire penetrates the main storage area of ammonia perchlorate and unleashes one of the largest accidental explosions in american history. ♪ >> wow [ bleep ] loud! [ explosion ] >> it was incredible. i think most people agree that it looks like some kind of a nuclear detonation. it's the most amazing thing. >> the shockwave ripples across the desert, blowing out windows and doors in homes and businesses throughout the cities of henderson and las vegas.

>> the plant was pretty close to a mountain range and when the pressure wave went out, it rebounded off the mountain and came back at an even more force. >> nearly everybody you talked to, no matter where they were at in las vegas, felt a tremendous hit. we realized that this was a serious, huge disaster. as you can see the damage, it really began to hit home. >> dennis todd watches from the mountaintop in disbelief. >> i was not ready for the mother load explosion when it came. it looked like nothing that i had ever seen before. >> the explosion kills two people, one whose body is never found. both are employees of pepcon who don't make it out in time. more than 350 people are injured. >> i remember one person describing it as, they were on a run, just a dead run away from the facility and as the

shockwave of the blast, you know, hit them, they ended up basically opening their eyes and they were on the ground. >> the blast consumes most of the remaining chemicals and there are no more explosions. the natural gas line is shut off and the fire burns itself out by the next day. >> and nobody can believe it. i think there was a realization from the residents of henderson that they had a very dangerous industry right in their backyard and nobody had stopped to think about that prior to the disaster of that magnitude. a marshmallow factory next door is leveled by the explosion. fortunately, all its employees evacuate beforehand. but it creates a sticky situation for firefighters who search through the debris. >> all of us had brown syrup all over our safety gear and pretty much saturated with marshmallow syrup. kind of a brown, sugary syrup. >> 200 miles away, the final explosion measures 3.5 on the

seismic magnitude at the california instut of technology in pasadena and is even felt by a commercial airplane on approach to the las vegas airport. >> as that shockwave went across the desert, anything its path was leveled, destroyed, disturbed. >> an investigation finds the fire is started by a welder's torch during maintenance and is spread by chemical residue that causes a fiberglass wall to ignite. the plant is rebuilt in utah and a power substation eventually takes its place in nevada. those that experienced the disaster firsthand will never forget it. >> the last explosion and the shockwave is burned into my brain forever. coming up -- workers moving a building run into serious trouble. and truckers make big mistakes. >> i'm thinking, what are you doing, guy? get out of there. >> when "caught on camera: total

destruction" continues. there's something out there. that can be serious, even fatal to infants. it's whooping cough, and people can spread it without knowing it. understand the danger your new grandchild faces. talk to your doctor or pharmacist about a whooping cough vaccination today. to prove to you that aleve is the better choice this is claira. for her she's agreed to give it up. that's today? we'll be with her all day to see how it goes. after the deliveries, i was ok. now the ciabatta is done and the pain is starting again. more pills? seriously?

seriously. all these stops to take more pills can be a pain. can i get my aleve back? for my pain, i want my aleve. get all day minor arthritis pain relief with an easy open cap. this holiday, i can count on my going off list.again, and knowing right when my packages arrive. so that's two things. introducing real time delivery notifications. sign up at myusps.com came out today thousands of people to run the race for retirement. so we asked them... are you completely prepared for retirement? okay, mostly prepared? could you save 1% more of your income? it doesn't sound like much, but saving an additional 1% now, could make a big difference over time. i'm going to be even better about saving. you can do it, it helps in the long run. prudential bring your challenges

we're always looking for ways to speed up your car insurance search. here's the latest. problem is, we haven't figured out how to reverse it. for now, just log on to compare.com... plug in some simple info and get up to 50 free quotes. choose the lowest and hit purchase. now...if you'll excuse me, i'm late for an important function. compare.com. saving humanity from high insurance rates.

people are shocked when an office building inexplicably falls over and crashes into the street. ♪ ♪ ♪ july 23rd, 2004, the philippines. an alarming situation develops when the eight-story building leans precariously over, one of the city's main shopping districts. age is not the problem. the building is just five years old. but the modern structure has been leaning over the street the last couple of days and is now in critical condition. fearing the worst, authorities evacuate the building and other buildings in the area. the busy street is cordoned off and local tv news cameras record the dangerous scene from both sides of the street.

then, just a few hours after everyone gets out of the building, it falls over. ♪ the building brings down power lines and kicks up a huge cloud of dust and debris. the collapse leaves a mound of rubble about half as high as the original structure. no one is injured. an investigation determines that flawed design and faulty construction, particularly with the building's foundation, are the main reasons for the collapse. across the globe, a much older and smaller building, a

122-year-old brick firehouse is being moved to a new location when something goes terribly wrong. the historic firehouse crumbles into a pile of rubble. august 21st, 2008, peekskill, new york. after months of planning, workers begin the slow and delicate operation of moving the firehouse. the firehouse, built in 1890, is home to the centennial hose company. it serves the peekskill community for 90 years before closing in 1980 because of recurring problems with flooding. >> every time we had heavy rains, it would flood out our firehouse. we used to be knee-deep, sometimes chest deep in watt irwater in the fire station. >> despite decades of neglect, firefighters cherish the centennial and the memories it

holds. but to make room for a new blij, the centennial is scheduled to be demolished. instead, the city of peekskill decide to move it down the street and turn it into a museum. however, moving a 122-year-old brick building is not easy feat and firefighters were concerned. >> i was kind of skeptical as to whether it would be able to be moved or not. >> a local video production company decides to document the move and a professional videographer sets up his equipment and begins to record the scene. >> they were turning the building 90 degrees so the front of the building would now face another direction so they could retool and get it to its new location. >> across the street from the firehouse, bobby, an employee at dane's lumber, repositions the store's security camera to capture the massive endeavor. >> just in case there was a mishap, i wanted to make sure that i had the camera pointed at

the firehouse so i could have a record of it. >> as soon as workers begin rotating the fragile building, it falls apart. >> all of a sudden you heard a pop and the whole building just leaned and what amounted to three seconds it was on the grou ground. >> a huge cloud of dust and debris surrounds the area and onlookers fear that workers are hurt. >> do you believe that? >> yeah. >> oh, man. >> those guys were all around that. holy -- >> where is he? where's my father? the son can be heard vividly screaming where's my father? where's my father? >> where is he? >> where is my father? >> he got out. he's all right. he got out. he's over there. he's over there. >> workers scramble to see if anyone is trapped or injured.

>> get everybody accounted for. >> within less than five minutes, all of the men knew that everyone was accounted for. and then at that point it just became cleaning up, getting the police department, fire department down. >> an investigation concludes a hydraulic lift supporting the mobile platform fails when the firehouse is being rotated to clear power lines. to honor the centennial's history, some of the bricks salvaged from the building are displayed in a trophy case at the current firehouse. >> coming up, the roof of the milwaukee brewer's stadium comes crashing down. >> there was nothing you could do. it was terrifying. and a massive storm floods more than a basement when "caught on camera: total destruction" continues. ♪

(vo) some call it giving back. we call it share the love. during our share the love event, get a new subaru, and we'll donate $250 to those in need. bringing our total donations to over sixty-five million dollars. and bringing love where it's needed most. love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. ho, ho, hello... can you help santa with a new data plan? sure thing... uh right now you can get 15 gigs of data for the price of 10. that's five extra gigs for the same price.

looks like someone just made it to the top of the nice list. in that case, i want a new bicycle, a bike helmet, a basketball, a stuffed animal that talks when you squeeze it. and... yes, yes. i got your letter. we're good. oh. okay i was just making sure. get 15 gigs for the price of 10 now at at&t. if you have moderate to severe ...isn't it time to let the... ...real you shine... ...through? introducing otezla, apremilast. otezla is not an injection, or a cream. it's a pill that treats plaque psoriasis differently. some people who took otezla saw 75% clearer skin after 4 months. and otezla's prescribing information has no requirement for routine lab monitoring. don't take otezla if you are allergic to any of its ingredients. otezla may increase... ...the risk of depression. tell your doctor if you have a history of depression... ...or suicidal thoughts, or if these feelings develop. some people taking otezla reported weight loss.

your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment. side effects may include diarrhea, nausea, upper respiratory tract infection, and headache. tell your doctor about all the medicines you take, and if you're pregnant or planning to be. ask your doctor about otezla today. otezla. show more of you. a house breaks off from its foundation and floats down a river.

>> i think everybody was just in absolute awe. >> instead of breaking apart, the house somehow stays together and drifts away. >> i had never seen anything like that before. >> i used to be a general contractor, so i'm amazed, number one, that the house stayed together after it fell in the water and floated. >> december 21st, 2010, little field, arizona. torrential rain causes massive flooding along the virgin river. >> mother nature, isn't she something? >> oh. look at that. >> wow! >> they call it the 100-year flood and they have the 100-year flood in 2005 and the 100-year flood in 2010. >> this is the second time for a 100-year storm in five years. we had two. >> flood gauges reach critical levels and the local fire department warns residents in the known danger zone to get out.

>> we actually went door to door telling everybody that, you know, the flood was coming, that they needed to move out of their homes. >> oh! >> after warning the neighborhood, the battalion chief andre ojeda begins with the houses most at risk. >> let's pick up a little bit. it's getting close to the edge. hey, don't get too close to the bank. >> there's nothing more he and his colleagues can do but watch and wait. >> when that moment arrived, it was kind of sad because people were losing their homes. >> it turns out he's not the only person videotaping the devastation. >> where are you from? >> from "the las vegas review journal." >> justin, a videographer for the las vegas review newspaper is also on the scene. >> you could see this house hanging on its edge of the

founddation and the wash undercut it. about a third of the house was completely out in the air. >> all eyes and cameras are on the beige house with white trim. no one is inside. the owner just completed construction and hasn't moved in yet. >> it's not finished yet, nope. >> i talked to him and he said he had just finished painting it and he was laying down the floor. >> there it goes. >> then, the unfinished house is finished forever. >> we knew it was coming. the sound is extremely eerie. the cracking, the popping -- >> the house shears off from the garage and falls into the river. >> wow. look at that. look at that. >> it starts floating away but then rams into the neighbor's house. >> when it hit it and spun it around, i thought the house

would then kind of fall apart, but it continued down the river. >> everyone is stunned as the well-constructed house stays together. >> the walls were still intact, the roof was intact. it floated down the river like a boat. >> it was hard to believe that a home would stay whole like that and just go down the wash like it did. the guy that built it must have built it very well. >> firefighters wish there was more they could do to help. >> when the house started going down the stream, it's just very emotional at that moment. >> just felt a bad for the owners. i don't know how else to describe it. just felt bad for those guys. >> incredibly, the house continues making way down river. >> it stayed pretty upright, it didn't wobble. it was like somebody could have been in the kitchen cooking. it didn't appear to be a rough ride. >> but its voyage doesn't last forever. the house gets tangled up with a tree.

♪ ♪ the turbulent water smashes against the house causing it to break apart. >> i bet you'll find washers, dryers, appliances, maybe some silverware. >> after taking quite a beating, the house is gone. >> just disappeared. i did several flights over the area and we could see pieces of roof downstream. a lot of just debris. you know, after they broke up. >> justin rushes to get his video on to the newspaper's website. the amazing footage quickly goes viral. >> i just uploaded the clip raw. it was by far the most popular on the website in the three years i've been with the "las vegas journal." >> watching the destructive power of mother nature is a humbling experience for the veteran firefighters. >> we still talk about it. it's unbelievable what we see in the video.

>> it's the american dream to own a house and to see one float down the river is devastating. coming up -- it's train versus truck. and the dallas cowboys versus nature's fury. >> it was terrifying. >> when "caught on camera: total destruction" continues.

this holiday i can count on someone's kid mistaking me for santa. i'm so sorry. come on sweetie. it's okay. and knowing right when my packages arrive. introducing real-time delivery notifications. one more reason this is our season.

hi. i'm richard lui with your hour's top stories. the l.a. county sheriff's department releases video of the fatal shooting of nicholas robertson. he was holding a gun when confronted and shot yesterday by deputies. cell phone video appeared to show robertson walking away from deputies sparking protests overnight. a university of north texas student shot and killed overnight by campus police. officers say they opened fire after the 21-year-olda, proe apd them holding an axe. now back to "caught on camera."

a railroad crossing in maple ridge, british columbia, a canadian logging town about an hour outside of vancouver is a known danger zone for truckers. >> i am going to say there are probably four or five hits in the 25 years that i've worked here. >> kirk works at walden forest products, a lumber company right near the ryll road crossing where 20 commuter and freight trains barrel through each day. >> most of these trains are going between 80 and 100 kilometers an hour, which is between 50 and 60 miles an hour. >> on july 25, 2008, one of walden's security cameras catches a tractor trailer pulling up to the railroad crossing just as the gates are going down. >> i could see the train coming around the corner and the train must have been doing about 55 miles per hour. >> ian woodruff is driving a tractor-trailer right behind the one on the tracks and watches as

the rig backs up. >> i watched him and to my amazement i couldn't believe he was going on the tracks. and as he got onto the set of tracks, the front warning gate came down. >> the truck begins backing up but the back gate closes just behind the driver's section of the 18-wheeler. the driver stops again, losing precious seconds as a speeding freight train heads right at him. >> i'm thinking, what are you doing, guy? get out of there. >> the big rig then lurches forward trying to outrun the train. >> i was stunned. i thought, what is he doing? don't take a chance like that. >> the fast moving northern canadian train makes a direct hit knocking the driver's section sideways. >> the train just smoked him, just t-boned him. the noise of it was like a sonic boom. >> employees at the lumber store hear the collision. >> just all of a sudden, bang,

and we all knew instantly what had happened. >> kirk naggy runs to the accident scene fearing the worst. >> i came running out and thought i was going to see something pretty bad inside the truck. >> he finds the driver walking around physically okay but badly shaken. >> the driver looked like he had just been transported from another place in time. he was in a daze. he was quiet. he looked like he knew he could have been killed. >> the train didn't hit the cab. it hit the last axle on the tractor, on the truck. and just spun it around. and that's what saved that guy's life. >> the massive collision is a learning experience for truck drivers who view the dramatic footage and especially for the one who sees it firsthand. >> every time i cross that train track crossing, i think of that day. other train crossings, i slow down, i stop, and i make sure there's nobody coming. [ horn ]

another direct hit at a railroad crossing. this time, in the american midwest. may 24, 1991, lafayette, indiana. a freight train blows its horn and then slams into a tractor-trailer trying to cross the tracks. the norfolk southern train forces the truck 75 feet down the track before finally coming to a stop. >> it was like slow motion. it hit in the trailer and it kind of scooted down the trailer and then it was pushing on the cab and it knocked down signals. rocks were flying everywhere. >> mark skaggs lives in town and videotapes trains for a hobby. he's recording a different train moments before impact and almost

misses the collision. >> i heard the whistle blowing and i spun around and caught it just at that instant. i kind of had a sinking feeling because i thought, oh, man, this guy could be dead. >> the train engineer and conductor check on the truck driver. he survives. rescue workers arrive quickly and take him to the hospital. he's released the next day. >> he was fortunate that the train wasn't going any faster. it could have been much worse. [ horn ] >> and in the southeastern united states, another train enthusiast gets the shot of a lifetime. november 21st, 2007, salisbury, north carolina. a tractor-trailer is slowly crossing the railroad tracks when a norfolk southern freight train plows right into it.

>> the train hit the trailer pretty much dead center in the middle of the trailer. >> the train lifts the 18-wheeler off the ground and sheers off the rear axle. >> the trailer got split in half. it went through the air like a frisbee. stuff was going everywhere. >> the massive collision is caught on camera by benjamin, who also videotapes trains as a hobby. he inherited his love of trains from his father who, in turn, got it from his dad. >> when i was small, my father and grandfather would take me over to the train tracks in greensboro. and once he started getting a little bigger and we started going outside the tracks and watching trains and he got interested and started taking pictures of them. >> on the day of the collision, father and son head to one of their favorite spots to train watch. a railroad crossing by a recycling transfer station. while dad waits in the car, the

young train buff walks to the other side of the tracks and starts recording a tractor-trailer that stops right in the middle of the crossing. as the gates start to close, he quickly realizes he, too, is in danger. he makes a split second decision to run to a safer location. >> i noticed that there was about to be a bad day, so i took off running with my camera farther away from the tracks. i didn't want to get hit by any flying debris or anything. >> he plants his tripod and starts adjusting the camera moments before impact. >> i didn't think i was going to be able to get it on video but luckily the camera was pointing in the right direction so i got the video. i was about scared to death. captured something i thought i'd never see. >> the truck driver starts inching forward but it's too little too late. pieces of the truck fly towards the camera. >> i was scared. i didn't know if something was going to hit me or anything.

i was just hoping that i was out of harm's way. >> he was stunned. >> i was like, holy cow, this really just happened. >> his father is on the other side of the tracks and checks on the truck driver. >> i seen the truck driver and i asked him if he was okay. he said he was okay. he didn't have a lot to say at the time. i reckon he was trying to figure out what happened, you know? >> the train engineer is also unharmed. the heart-stopping incident doesn't stop him from watching trains with his dad and recording them. >> to this day, i'm still videoing trains. i've always enjoyed doing it and it's the only one i've ever seen where something bad happened, thankfully. coming up, the construction of a new major league baseball stadium comes to a screeching halt. >> you don't expect to see one of the most catastrophic construction accidents we've ever had. and a fighter jet falls from the sky.

>> when "caught on camera: total destruction" continues. what super poligrip does for me is it keeps the food out. before those little pieces would get in between my dentures and my gum and it was uncomfortable. just a few dabs is clinically proven to seal out more food particles.

super poligrip is part of my life now. the kids went to nana's house... for the whole weekend. zzzquil. the non-habit forming sleep aid that helps you sleep easily, and wake refreshed. because sleep is a beautiful thing. at ally bank no branches equals great rates. it's a fact. kind of like playing the boss equals the boss wins.

wow! by day, they must stay warm. challenges to the feet. but by night, beautiful, smoother and ready to impress the other party animals. dr. scholl's dreamwalk express pedi ♪ it's the final countdown! ♪ ♪ the final countdown! if you're the band europe, you love a final countdown. it's what you do. if you want to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance, you switch to geico. it's what you do.

a violent storm wreaks havoc on the dallas cowboy's practice facility forcing everyone to run for their lives. >> and i was trying to get through the door, the door collapsed. and i'll never forget this. one of the players pushed me out of the way to get through. so it wasn't like, hey, let's leave in an orderly fashion. it was, get out of the way. i want to get out of here. >> march 2nd, 2009, irving, texas. a massive thunderstorm moves the dallas cowboy's rookie practice indoors.

all seems fine until the lights start to sway. >> that's when i got nervous. i thought, one of these things is going to snap. >> seconds later, the entire facility collapses. about 70 people struggle to escape, including mack, a reporter for the ft. worth telegram. >> it's so fast and so chaotic, your first thought is, just get me to safety, wherever this is. >> a tv cameraman keeps rolling as people try to figure out what just happened and if anyone is injured. >> irving fire department. >> the dallas cowboys practice nass facility in valley ranch. the indoor practice facility collapsed.

>> what has collapsed? >> their indoor practice facility. >> okay. anybody hurt? >> i have no idea. i went out of there. i have no idea. >> sam! sam! sam! >> panic rises as the team videographer is missing. minutes before the collapse, he was 40 feet above the ground on a hydraulic lift. >> sam! sam! sam! >> miraculously, he survives unharmed. the terrifying incident takes place at the cowboys' headquarters and practice facility known as valley ranch where one of the fields is covered by a dome made of fabric and metal to protect the players from bad weather. practice is moved indoors because of a thunderstorm. >> you could start to hear the raven a little bit. it was loud.

you can hear it shaking against the material there. >> as the storm progresses, the walls begin to flap violently in the high winds. when the huge lights begin to sway, it quickly becomes obvious that the facility is no longer a safe haven. >> that's pretty eerie. you don't see that every day. they were just sort of swaying back and forth. and your first thought is, well, i want to get out of the way. >> but there's no time. the structure collapses in front of engle's eyes. >> it was terrifying. i'd be lying to you if i -- i had never seen anything like this before. it was terrifying. ♪ ♪ the sound of it was panic. i think that's the best way i can describe it. panic. >> sam! >> sam! >> sam! >> 12 people are treated for broken bones and bruises at the nearby hospital. no players are injured, but the cowboys' staff suffers a devastating blow.

the most severely injured is 33-year-old assistant scout rich beam. his spine is severed and he's permanently paralyzed from the waist down. >> the initial reaction was, man, we were lucky. nobody got really hurt. it wasn't much later we realized, not everybody was so lucky and we found out about rich. i think that changed everybody's perspective of all of it. >> the cause of the collapse is immediately investigated. at first it's thought that a tornado hit the facility but it turns out the collapse is caused by a microburst, an intense downdraft of air over a small area usually caused by a thunderstorm. the investigation reveals that wind speeds during the microburst are estimated to be between 55 and 65 miles per hour. and because of structural flaws, the facility is unable to

withstand the impact. the indoor practice facility isn't rebuilt. now when bad weather strikes, the team practices inside the cowboys' stadium. ten years earlier, tragedy strikes another professional sports complex. july 14, 1999, milwaukee, wisconsin, a new major league ballpark for the home team brewers is under construction. a giant crane is lifting part of a retractible roof into place when something gets everyone's attention. >> what the hell was that? what's going on here? >> several more loud noises follow. >> watch it! watch it! >> then --

>> i thought i was going to die. stuff was flying like toothpicks. >> the event registered on the richter scale at the university wisconsin milwaukee and had an impact that they noticed on their seismographs there. >> the terrifying accident is caught on camera by an employee of the occupational safety and health administration, a federal agency charged with setting and enforcing workplace standards. osha inspector patrick ostringa is on site that day for a visit. seconds before the collapse, his colleagues begins recording the crane, not for work but for pleasure. >> we were videoing it just to see, and it turned out to be the best evidence we have. >> iron worker jeff kasinski is watching the lift from a man basket, a buck ed suspended from a crane inside the stadium.

>> you don't go to work expecting, you know -- you don't expect to see one of the most catastrophic accidents we've ever had. >> the retractible roof is the show piece of the cutting-edge baseball stadium, but lifting the pre-constructed structure into place isn't easy. it weighs 400 tons. >> you may as well be lifting the world. that's a lot of iron to be lifting at one shot. >> the crane, nicknamed big blue, is the largest in north america at the time. it lifts the roof nearly 200 feet into the air. everything proceeds as planned until -- >> it was loud to the point where i could feel almost like a concussion to my chest. i mean, it was ground shaking. it was a really loud boom. >> the noise is caused by the snapping of the kingpin, the main anchoring device that connects the crane's main boom to the base of the crane. >> what the hell is that? what's going on here?

>> that is not a sound that you ever want to hear. and it was bad. >> without the kingpin, the crane is doomed. seconds later, big blue and the roof come crashing down. >> watch it! watch it! [ bleep ] >> there's no -- there's nothing you can do, you know. it's terrifying. >> the crane and roof fall away from jeff's yellow man basket, seen on the right, and miss him. but another crane on the left is hit. it's holding a man basket with three other iron workers in it. >> there was a crane holding my three friends and then there was my crane and then blue, and mine was the only one left standing, i think. all of the other cranes went over.

>> all three men lose their lives. it's a devastating blow. >> jerry star was a really nice guy. he was our union steward on the job. jeff wisher, he's the guy i knew the most and bill, the diver, we called him on the know. >> several other people are injured, including kasinski. he sustains a career-ending back injury when his basket is lowered and stopped too quickly. >> that was my last day on the job as an ironworker. >> an investigation finds several factors are to blame for the collapse. the biggest being the wind is blowing too hard for the crane to operate safely. >> the wind was 35 mile an hour gusting. it caught like a sail and it pulled this big crane over which fell into the crane that my people were suspended from in a man box and that's how it happened. >> robert habash represents the widows of the three men killed in a wrongful death lawsuit

against the contractor mitsubishi heavy industries of america. a jury awards them nearly $100 million in punitive and compensatory damages, calculated in part from the video. >> from the video, we were able to time how long it took for the crane to go down where these guys fell to their death, 14 seconds, and the jury was asked to award per second what their conscious anticipation of death meant to them because they knew they were going to die. >> the verdict is appealed and eventually settled out of court. the stadium, named miller park, opens nearly two years after the accident featuring the only fan-shaped retractible roof in the country. a memorial to the men who lost their lives greets fans when they enter, ensuring the three iron workers will never be forgotten.

coming up -- an f-18 test hornet flight turns into a fight for survival. >> i could not see anything. and i didn't realize they were on fire. >> when "caught on camera: total destruction" continues. name. carnie wilson. thank you. can you hold on? ♪ hold on for one more day really? hey, i know there's pain. why do you lock yourself up in these chains? ♪ this would be so easy if you had progressive. our mobile app would let you file a claim and help you find one of our service centers where we manage the entire repair process. things will go your way if you hold on. [ sighs ] someday somebody's gonna make you wanna turn around and say goodbye. ♪ say goodbye no, you just made it weird. it's a highly thercontagious disease.here. it can be especially serious- even fatal to infants. unfortunately, many people who spread it may not know they have it. it's called whooping cough. and the cdc recommends everyone, including those around babies,

make sure their whooping cough vaccination is up to date. understand the danger your new grandchild faces. talk to your doctor or pharmacist about you and your family getting a whooping cough vaccination today. the way i see it, you have two choices; the easy way or the hard way. you could choose a card that limits where you earn bonus cash back. or, you could make things easier on yourself. that's right, the quicksilver card from capital one. with quicksilver you earn unlimited 1.5% cash back on every purchase, everywhere. so, let's try this again. what's in your wallet?

great time for a shiny floor wax, no? not if you just put the finishing touches on your latest masterpiece. timing's important. comcast business knows that. that's why you can schedule an installation at a time that works for you. even late at night, or on the weekend,

if that's what you need. because you have enough to worry about. i did not see that coming. don't deal with disruptions. get better internet installed on your schedule. comcast business. built for business. a u.s. navy fighter jet is conducting a bomb deployment test when something goes horribly wrong. >> it was quite an event. with a big fireball and then we started to do more acrobatics. i was thinking about how i was going to get out of the airplane. >> september 30th, 1981, 5,000 feet over the naval air station in pentuxent, maryland.

test flight photographer is filming an f-18 hornet from a chase plane. >> it was basically filled with concrete. the mission was to find out how the mark 82 would separate from the airplane in an emergency mode. >> dozens of other cameras are also recording the critical test of the navy's newest fighter jet. >> they are all stuck all over the airplane and then i'm there as the insurance policy. if something goes wrong and they lose the airplane, they have my film that can come back and reassemble what happened. >> little does he know, it's his plane that will run into trouble. when the planes reach 500 feet, the hornet releases the bomb flying at more than 500 miles per hour. >> we had just gotten into position and it came down a little bit and then turned on its side and took our right wing off. >> a slow motion camera on the f-18 records the bomb shearing off part of the wing.

>> when it hit us, it was nothing. i felt a little bump. not even like when you run into a telephone pole backing up out of a parking place. nothing drastic. but then we did two 360-degree rolls in less than a second and half. so that got my attention. >> hep and the pilot are the only two people in the plane. as they spin wildly around and around, their plane becomes engulfed in flames. hep doesn't know the plane is on fire and critically damaged. >> i thought, oh, we lost control because he tried to evade weapon. i did not realize it had taken off our wing. i thought that we would recover the air plaep and that we had just lost control of it a little it b. i thought, okay, we're good. we're going to fly around and land. >> as they continue their fiery spiral towards earth, his vision gets blurry. >> i could not see anything. all i could see was black and gray.

i didn't realize at the time that our canopy had glazed over. inside the fireball it all crystallized and i didn't realize that we were on fire at that particular time. >> the plane slams into the ground. then a camera scans the sky and finds hep and the pilot parachuting to safety. they activate their emergency rocket propelled ejection seats in the nick of time. >> i saw the fire and i said, okay, i think it's time to get out. i'm no longer having fun. i'm going to eject myself. >> he and the pilot shoot out from the doomed aircraft seconds before impact. >> i don't remember coming out of the airplane visually. i felt the snap of the parachute. that's when i opened my eyes finally or could see again. grabbed ahold of my parachute and looked um and saw the big circle and said, okay, i'm happy now.

i said some other words, too. >> they float to safety and incredibly both are okay. an investigation reveals several problems. the biggest being that the chase plane isn't in perfect position when the hornet releases the bomb. >> we were just about in a very safe position before the weapon was released. we thought we could make it. there's also a whole bunch of what we call layers of swiss cheese that are involved in a mishap. it's all of those little things finally pile up into one line. call it the layers of swiss cheese. the holes line up and you have a problem. >> hep's camera and film are never recovered. he works as a test flight photographer for 28 more years. >> this is the worst thing that's ever happened to me by far. i never felt scared. everybody says, well, weren't you petrified? i says, actually, no. i didn't have time to think about being scared

xx . at risk and under fire. >> i was prepared to do anything that i needed to do to stop him. >> law enforcement officers never know what the next call are will bring. >> don't do it! >> and must often make life or death decisions in an instant. >> to my mind, i am going to sit here and watch his life end before me. >> when force is used, what is seen may be hard to watch, and emotionally charged. dash cam