youthat's why you drink ensure. sidelined. with 9 grams of protein and 26 vitamins and minerals. for the strength and energy to get back to doing... ...what you love. ensure. always be you. > all the world may be a stage but there's no telling when life will radically depart from the script. in illinois, a man is trampled by a panicked horse while another in north carolina struggles to escape from a deadly inferno. then, a 4th of july celebration goes explosively off course. while taking off in a jet turns into a fight between life and death. and falling from 9,000 feet, two

skydivers struggle to free themselves before it's too late. >> you have to do something or your you're going to die. >> sometimes the best-laid plans can take a turn for the weird. >> "caught on camera, what went wrong." welcome to "caught on camera." i'm contessa brewer. sometimes a tiny detail can be off and then in a split second, a routine event can escalate into a life or death drama leaving folks to wonder what went wrong. it can happen at work or at play or as these people found out, during a leisurely day at a horse show. an official at a horse competition gets trampled by an out of control horse. may 2nd, 2001, springfield, illinois, at the arabian breed

regionals, drivers move their horses into the ring to compete in a class called country pleasure driving. videographer rick bomarito is there to capture the event. >> it's a very neat class. it should look like a pleasure to drive. >> one of the riders here to compete on this day is paul hyman. >> he loves to show off. riding a horse, you sit on top of the horse on a saddle in stirrups and reigns. you control the horse with your legs and arms. it is much easier to control them that way. when you drive, you only have reins and the horse is way up in front so you really don't control as much as when you are riding. >> the competition begins as planned when paul drives his horse into the ring with the others. but then his horse begins to speed up. >> all of a sudden he started to cantor and that's a big sign that something is wrong. >> walk, please. walk your horse.

time-out. >> he pulls the reins to stop but it's no use. >> he hit the other cart and i got thrown out and he was on his own and he really freaked out. >> the horse went into a total panic because he had a loose cart behind him that's banging and turning upside down. >> veteran horse trainers shuck see chuck seeman and matt trained paul's horse for the event. >> bring the horses to the inside. bring the horses to the inside, please. >> the tipped cart panics the horse even more. paul and the others scramble to the center to avoid the one-ton animal. the buggy finally shakes loose but paul's horse still won't stop. >> there's nothing scarier than a horse that's totally lost his mental capabilities. he doesn't care what he did or who he ran over. >> he almost runs over a man and then another man tries to grab the loose reins but that only makes matters worse.

paul's horse crashes into another horse. his horse falls down and then gets back up and bolts again. >> the horse was scared to death. no one was going to stop him unless they grabbed his head and pulled him to the ground. >> everyone's shocked by what happens next. >> the horse comes underneath my camera location, one of the ringmen threw himself in front of the horse. that's a ton of animal coming at you. it was a brave act. he was doing what he could as a ring man to save the rest of the class. >> he is uncle bob. all of the horsemen love him to death. he had just had open heart surgery that spring. we were all concerned it was the end of bob. fortunately, it was not. >> uncle bob is okay but paul's horse is still completely out of control. it runs straight at a horse whose driver is disabled and can't exit the buggy but a judge scares it off by tossing papers

at it. >> all horses are herd animals when they are in a panic situation. they actually want comfort in another animal or a person. the horse that was running free just wanted to get near another horse and have the comfort of that. >> shouts and screams by onlookers spooked paul's horse even more. >> keep quiet. please keep quiet. leave the horse on the outside. >> it makes another run at the same horse and this time it slams right into it and its disabled driver. a judge grabs paul's horse, finally stopping him. and the disabled driver is free just as the second horse bolts. >> we need a medic, please. >> my son matt was there in the ring. he had an instinct to go and grab her out of the cart before the horse took off or that could have been a life-threatening situation. it was a miracle. >> watching this unfold, like i say, it's surrealistic.

one horse charges into another horse and the second horse takes off. my mind is, oh, good, a fresh horse. that's all we need. >> the startled animal runs over paul's discarded buggy. ring officials try to keep it away from people in the center. >> keep quiet. keep the horse on the rail if you can. keep him on the outside if you can. >> if the horse goes through center ring, we could have some major sear just injuries. >> the horse avoids the center but loops back around. it knocks a man over and narrowly misses the disabled driver. >> what goes through someone's mind at that time is total panic. and then a lot of prayer because you don't know what the outcome is going to be. >> the buggy tips helping slow the horse just enough to enable a few other animals to be

removed from the ring. >> take the horses out. take them out. can we get that far gate open? don't open it now. hold on. no. no. wait. >> but this horse shows no signs of stopping. moments later, ringmen ready lassos to harness it. when the buggy jolts off, the exhausted animal trips and goes down. if the horse is critically injured, it will have to be put down. fortunately, it's not hurt. >> the horse was absolutely fine. he went on at the end of that year and was national champion country horse under saddle. he was fine after that, just exhausted and terrified. >> miraculously, other than a few bruises and one broken thumb, no people are critically injured either. so what went wrong to initiate all this chaos? it wasn't driver error.

paul was an expert horseman and his horse has plenty of competition experience. turns out it was something small that chuck noticed in the ring only after it was too late. stinging bees. >> that particular day, as the horses entered the ring on the far side, several of them were irritated by something. i personally think it was some kind of bees that were in there and then paul came through there and his horse just panicked and took off at a full dead run. >> after this happened, my trainer recommended i stop driving that horse. and if i want to keep driving, i should get a different horse and i bought his brother. this is lucky. because he brings me luck. >> lucky also brought luck to matt, the trainer who saves the disabled woman in this video. at the 2011 nationals, matt and the horse take the ribbon.

>> matthew seman drives the national champion. >> the best horses in the country are here today. i'm happy to be here to day. coming up, a sky diving formation goes bad leaving one man in a death defying downward spiral. >> i didn't know if allen was going to make it. i've never seen anything that violent. >> when "caught on camera: what went wrong" continues. oh. henry! oh my. good, you're good. back, back, back. (vo) according to kelley blue book, subaru has the highest resale value of any brand. again. you might find that comforting. love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru.

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the stakes are high for more than three dozen skydivers attempting a world record. but the risks climb even higher when two skydivers find themselves in a life threatening downward spiral. october 1994, 18,000 feet above

davis, california, a group of skydivers is determined to make it into the record books. their goal? build a 46 parachute diamond or canopy and then separate and land safely. it will hold more eight more skydivers than the world's best of 38. this morning is their last test before the next day's big jump. skydiving cameraman, brian scott, tapes the practice session. the skydivers will use the tape later to analyze the jump. >> canopy formation is multiple parachuters flying in formation. the person on the top will grab the nigh plylon of the parachut puts a foot on the line while someone else comes and joins a formation and you will build up

a diamond or a stack of parachutes. >> it's a risky jump. mike lewis, 35 year veteran sky diver embraces the challenge. >> canopy formation is a very fragile formation. the idea of someone grabbing ahold of your parachute scares experienced jumpers even more than new jumpers. because if they get all tangled up in your parachute, it's gone. you can't use it to land. >> lewis is the point man. in charge of mapping out every detail. he knows even the smallest miscue can be a disaster. >> it's much like choreographing a dance. because everyone has an assigned place to fly to and take ahold of the other canopy. you have to have your hand and feet in the right place. you have to plan out the entire jump and then the challenge is to go up and do it in the air. >> for today's world record attempt, lewis assembles the best in the field. all seems to be going smoothly

until something captures cameraman scott's eye. >> there was someone on the left row that had fallin out of the formation and that sent through the formation and this kind of went to the opposite side of the formation. >> sure enough, as the skydiver attempts to join the right side of the formation, the wave reaches him. still, he manages to hold tight as another team member approaches from the below. the man beneath should help stabilize the right side. >> you want to see a man come in underneath the wing dock like that just to add stability to the formation. otherwise, it is just a free-floating parachute. >> before the skydivers on the right can stabilize, the man on the left reapproaches row six. as he joins, he pulls down on the formation, amplifying the wave again. when the wave reaches the chutes on the right, they are pushed forward.

>> as i come forward, the parachutes start collapsing like an accordion. that's when several people let go on the right side. the right row six wing was so far forward that when they let go of him, his parachute flew across the formation. his parachute did a 90-degree left turn and came right into the formation. >> the entire pyramid collapses and two skydivers end up in a treacherous tangle. the unlucky man who gets wrapped up is brian scott's friend. alan gutshaw. >> it was alan and he's one of my best friends in the world. i got right on it and started spiralling two of them. it kind of looked like a bi-plane. it was two parachutes like this together. >> chutes that are tangled can't function properly. now, both sky divers spin out of control. they are 9,000 feet above the ground.

alan has another problem. the lines of the other man's shoot are wrapped around his neck. >> this is what we call a wrap. your parachute opens but someone else's parachute is wrapped around you. in that case, the person who has the parachute wrapped around you needs to pull their release handle and free-fall. that takes the tension off. >> falling at nearly 50 miles an hour, the skydivers have less than two minutes before they hit the ground. the first guy manages to break free. his parachute remains behind. it's lines still wrapped around alan's neck. >> the parachute's line has wrapped around him twice. when the other guy cut away the tension stayed on him when he cut away. the parachute was still partially opened and wrapped around alan so it was pulling those lines tight like a chinese finger trap. it sticks to you. >> with time running out and his neck constricted, alan has only one option, cut the other sky

divers chute line but as he does that, it leads to another problem. >> once alan cut the line, the other parachute started spinning. it got spinning more and more. now it's wrapping alan's parachute lines up into a coil. it was tying a rope. >> alan's spinning out of control and time is running out. >> i didn't know if alan was going to make it. i had never seen anything that violent before. i knew we were getting quite low and i could see the numbers on the runway. i thought he was going to go in the way i was watching him through this ordeal. >> with the lines twisted so thick and tight, alan's problems go from bad to worse. his knife breaks. alan reaches for another knife which he wouldn't have been carrying that day if it hadn't been for his friend brian scott. >> the day before i went to the

pro shop and bought him a metal hook knife and i think alan had a knife that was already in his rig. it was kind of like on his harness right here. but it was plastic. i bought him a better knife. it was just a present to my buddy the day before. >> with his new knife, alan finally frees himself of both chutes. now in free fall, he has less than ten seconds until impact. >> we were under 1,000 feet. i saw a pilot shoot come out. that was it. he pulled it out at about 700 feet. >> with little time to spare, he coasts to a landing completely unscathed. luckily, his reserve chute deployed even though he was so close to the ground. >> we all gathered at the ground and he was just laughing and carrying on. he was back up in the air that day. i mean, alan is just my hero. he never gave up for one second. >> the very next day, the team

breaks the world record for canopy formation. one of those skydivers? alan gutshaw. coming up, rescuers spot a man whose time is running out. >> he was in the midst of it and i knew he want doing well. >> when "caught on camera: what went wrong" continues.

a factory worker clings to life hoping rescuers can reach him before it's too late. january 2003, the west pharmaceutical factory in north carolina manufacturer of rubber stoppers for syringes blows sky high. calls pour in to 911. >> what is your emergency? >> there's been a big explosion. >> some callers report that a plane struck the building. sees it from miles away. >> i heard an explosion and saw the smoke rising above the trees. i thought it was a plane crash into the building.

i thought there would be a lot of casualties. i've never been in a fire or any incident of that size before. >> the north county fire marshal is also called in that day. >> we're in rural eastern north carolina, a small town. when this happened, it took every resource within our county. for the fire service, this was our world trade center. >> a little more than a year after the 9/11 attack, has small town kinston been the target of a similar strike? casualties could be high with 130 employees on site at the time of the accident, officials quickly rule out that an airplane is to blame. >> within the first hour of being on the scene and contacting the tower at the airport, no evidence of any plane striking the building was seen. so we ruled out a plane going into the building fairly early. >> officer woody spencer of the kinston police department documents the scene on video. >> it was total chaos.

it was trucks and people running all over the place, trucks and flames and smoke billowing from the building. when i started the videotape, there was a piece of wood impaled into the ground. the combustion of explosion was immense. >> 20 minutes after the blast, officials believe dozens of employees may still be trapped inside. firefighters search desperately in the thick, black smoke. and then a worker manages to climb out of the devastation. firefighters help the badly burned man down from the hot roof. with other workers still missing, rescuers have to jump right back in. >> they are still searching for people that weren't accounted for.

we are fg to going to stay until the job gets done. >> rumors were everywhere, that there were all sorts of people inside trapped and dead. >> one hour after the start of the fire, authorities know the prospect of finding survivors is grim and that's when they see a sight they can hardly believe. >> the wind kind of shifted and started pushing smoke a different direction and all of a sudden he appeared out of the smoke. everybody was speechless. >> i've been a shooter for 20 something years and that right there was probably -- i felt as helpless as i've ever felt in my life. there was nothing i could possibly do. all i could do was videotape it from a distance. >> he's perched just above the epicenter of the fire. and appears severely burned on his arms and legs. now officials have to figure out how to pull him from the inferno. >> he had already been up there for a while. we knew that time wasn't in his favor. >> with time running out, rescuers must quickly devise a safe way in and out.

>> something of that magnitude, just not sure what is going to happen walking on the roof or inside the building with all of the structural collapse. you don't know how sound it is one little thing could fall and create a domino effect. >> the man is there for 20 more minutes before firefighters reach him and pull him to safety. he is machinist and he survives. >> they said, i'm with you jim, relax, everything will be fine. i'm be right with you. nothing is going to happen to you. >> edwards is burned over 60% of his body. trapped inside the blaze, he had wondered if his time had come. >> the fire and everything was about ten foot away from me and from all of that heat and everything it was heating me alive and i couldn't go

knowwhere. it was scary and i was just wondering if i was ever going to see the next day or not. i figured this was the end. >> over the next three years, edwards undergoes a dozen surgeries. along the way he contracts an infection that ultimately claims his eyesight. despite his hardships, edwards remains positive. >> the good lord felt like it was not my time to go. i feel like i still have something to offer, to give to people. i'm blessed to be here still today. i talk to people about how important it is to not take anything for granted because you can lose everything in a flash. >> in all, six people die in the fire. what went wrong to start this deadly blaze in the first place? turns out it's something that went unnoticed accumulating for years. dust, polyethylene dust, a nonstick coating applied to the raw rubber produced at the factory. >> it's not like house dust. it's like a real fine, powdery kind of a texture of a talcum powder and when it's suspended and hanging in the air, it's very explosive and very flammable.

if it accumulates over time and in a drop ceiling, it takes something very minor to make that dust airborne and once it finds an ignition source, it's going to blow. . >> like a natural gas leak, any sort could have lit that dust. a light switch, static, a tool spark. but authorities were never able to confirm the source in this case. after this incident, north carolina passes stricter fire regulations to allow inspectors access to examine confined areas where dust can accumulate. the aim is to safeguard the lives of workers and first responders. with west pharmaceuticals now rebuilt nearby, jim edwards expects the new rules will help avoid future catastrophes. >> i felt what happened that day was a tragedy for everybody and

i hope that west company has learned from the fire. coming up -- >> oh, my god. >> -- a fireworks display malfunctions and speculators run for their lives. when "caught on camera: what went wrong" continues. thanks for the ride around norfolk! and i just wanted to say, geico is proud to have served the military for over 75 years! roger that. captain's waiting to give you a tour of the wisconsin now. could've parked a little bit closer... it's gonna be dark by the time i get there. geico®. proudly serving the military for over 75 years. fight heartburn fast. with tums chewy delights. the mouthwatering soft chew that goes to work in seconds to conquer heartburn fast. tum tum tum tum. chewy delights. only from tums.

try phillips' fiber good gummies plus energy support. there's a more enjoyable way to get your fiber. good day, i'm chuck todd. a little breaking news on msnbc. the hillary clinton campaign has confirmed the former secretary of state gave what they characterized as a voluntary interview about her e-mail practices while she served as secretary of state. sources tell nbc news that the long anticipated interview lasted approximately 3 1/2 hours. to give us more insight, we are joined by the former secretary of state, hillary clinton on the phone now. madam secretary, good to talk to you this afternoon. >> thank you so much. good to talk to you, chuck. >> let me start with this. "the new york times" called the meeting you had this morning civil and businesslike. >> how would you describe your interview with the fbi today? >> well, it was both. it was something i had offered

to do since last august. i have been eager to do it. i was pleased to have the opportunity to assist the department in bringing its review to a conclusion. >> i want to ask you about specifically obviously the central question here is whether you violated the law in the handling of classified information. 18 u.s. code, 1924, up authorized removal of classified documents or material. why do you believe you did not violate this? >> by virtue of his or her office if they become possessed of douk couples or material obtaining classified information of the united states, knowingly removing such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at another unauthorized location. how did your private server, where you kept this classified information, some of which was retroactive, i understand, after your term as secretary of state,

how is that not a violation of this code? >> well, chuck, that's a mouthful. let me just repeat what i have repeated for many months now. i never received nor sent any material that was marked classified. there is a process for the review of material before it is released to the public and there were decisions made that material should be classified. i do call that retroactively classifying. so, therefore, it would not be publicly released. that doesn't change the facts as i have explained many times. >> who advised you that it was perfectly legal for you to have a private server and have this information on there as secretary of state? who gave you that advice? >> i'm not going to go into any

more detail than i already have in public many times, as you certainly know, out of respect for the process that the department is conducting. i'm not going to comment any further on the review. i have been answering questions now for over a year. i have released more than 55,000 pages of my e-mails for the public to read for themselves. i will continue to be as forthcoming as i can. my answers that i first gave more than a year ago i stand by. >> let me ask you this. your husband made an unannounced visit to the attorney general on a tarmac in arizona. i'm curious of you initial reaction when you found out the news. >> well, i learned about it in the news. it was a short chance meeting at

an airport tarmac. both of their planes, as i understand it, were landing on the same tarmac at about the same time. the attorney general's husband was there. they said hello, they talked about grandkids, which is very much on our mind these days, golf, their mutual friend, former attorney general, janet reno. it was purely social. they did not veer off of speaking about those kinds of very common exchanges. >> you didn't view what he did as inappropriate? >> well, it was a short chance meeting that occurred. they did not discuss the department of justice's review. i know that some nonetheless have viewed the meeting in a different light. both the attorney general and my husband said, they would not do it again. the bottom line for me is i respect the professionalism and

integrity of the officials at the department of justice handling this process. i was pleased to have a chance to sit down and answer their questions today to try to help bring this review to a conclusion. >> do you understand why many in the public, some of them are political opponents of yours, some are supporters that thought that was a bad decision by your husband, that that was a mistake and he should have known better? >> well, i think hindsight is 20/20. both the attorney general and my husband have said they wouldn't do it again even though it was from all accounts that i have heard and seen an exchange of pleasantries. obviously, no one wants to see any untoward conclusions drawn. they said they would not do it again. >> finally, let me ask you this. obviously, you've seen the polling.

we have talked about this issue of your problem with voters and the issue of trustworthyness. how does it feel to have voters believe that donald trump is more honest and straightforward than you are by nearly a 2-1 margin? >> well, chuck, look, i have said that i am going to continue to put forth my record, what i have stood for, do everything i can to earn the trust of the voters of our country. i know that's something that i'm going to keep working on. i think that's a clear priority for me. i think a lot of people count on me. they rely on me, just as the voters of new york did when they reelected me overwhelmingly as they voted again for me in the primary based on what they knew of me and how they counted on

me. and beat president obama in a campaign. i know there is a lot of incoming fire. i accept that. i'm going to keep standing up and talking about what i have done and what i will do. >> i know your campaign said we only had five minutes for this interview. let me ask you this one question. as we were talking, there are some news reports out there that indicate no charges may be brought against you in a final decision in a couple weeks. were you given that indication today, that no changrges would filed and are you confident no charges will be filed? >> chuck, i am not going to comment on the process. i have no knowledge of any timeline. this is entirely up to the

department. >> secretary clinton, i know i went over my time that you guys offered us. i will leave it there. thank you very much. >> good to talk to you. >> okay. bye-bye. >> there you go, as you heard from secretary clinton, she has said she does not have a timeline. she is not aware of any timeline. she is not aware of what the fbi may or may not do. she seemed limited in what she wanted to say and did repeat that she believes everything she did was following the law. there you go, that special report there for you. that hillary clinton interview. we will go now back to regular programming. you can see more of our discussion on this and everything going on with the presidential campaign on "meet the press." check your local listings on nbc tomorrow morning and, of course, 2:00 p.m. eastern on msnbc. i'm chuck todd. i'll see you later. d i just disd this new dog treat called dentalife. it's really different. see? it's flexible... ...and it has a chewy, porous texture, full of little tiny

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becomes a fight for life. canadian air force captain, hunt, has flown fighters for more than two decades. with thousands of hours logged, he's among canada's best. >> i was transferred to the flight instructor school where i was an instructor for instructors. >> at the canadian flight training center in moosejaw, saskatchewan, instructors fly with students in the hawk 155. this jet is a one-engine two-seat aircraft. on training missions, the student pilot flies in the front seat and instructor pilots like hut fly in the back seat. >> when we sign the airplane out, the instructor pilot is in charge of the plane for the mission. we have a camera in the plane to see how the student is flying for debrief later.

>> among the maneuvers pilots practice is the touch and go. that's when a pilot touches wheels down briefly and then returns to the air in one fell swoop without stopping. for fighter pilots, the maneuver is routine, one that can save their lives if a landing must be aborted for any reason. in may, 2004, captain hut supervises a touch and go performed by a british pilot during trained. training. >> he was a fully winged pilot. he was getting familiarization. before he went on to some other fighter training for him. >> once he completes the touch and go, hut takes over. >> i said, okay, he's been flying for an hour and a half. i have to have just a minute on the stick. that's exactly when i put the wheels up after the touch and go. >> but then both pilots are rocked by what happens next. a single bird gets sucked into the jet's engine.

>> when you have the landing gear up and no runway in front of you, the option of putting the aircraft down on the ground when you have lost all the thrust is gone. >> with no thrust from his only engine, hut has only one option. >> when that bird went in the engine, i knew i had to eject and i was just not looking forward to doing it. the ejection system is designed to get your body away from the crash site. you're not expected to get out of the situation unscathed. it's a very violent thing. i know pretty well every situation where two people have injected out of the same plane, at least one of them is hurt, if not fatally. >> hut takes advantage of the speed he has to tilt nose up and gain altitude. that could increase their chances for survival. with more altitude, their parachutes will have more time to deploy. hut has one other thing going for him.

>> it was at the end of the mission, the fuel state was low and so the aircraft was light. i had that advantage. >> with altitude gained, hut tries restarting the engine. no luck. and now they have another problem. they've lost too much speed. >> because i was too aggressive with that initial climb, i was basically trying to keep the airplane flying. if they fly too slow, they stall. >> a stalled plane has no lift and falls out of control. to prevent that, hut drops his right wing, trading altitude for air speed. the jet's computer warns that their jet is not geared for landing. with the ground approaching rapidly, hut must level the aircraft before ejection. >> what is paramount is to be wings level. it really helps your chances of survival. when you put any bank on the airplane, it lessens, especially in a low level environment.

all i was thinking about was making sure we were wings level before we ejected. >> the pilots try to restart one last time. >> going to try to get a restart going. >> okay. >> okay. >> i'll fly the plane. engine is stopped. >> with time running out, hut prepares to eject. his last task is to aim the jet where it will do the least harm when it crashes. >> i took a quick look around to see where the airplane was going. straight ahead looked good. set the throttle back to idle. we were ready and the ground was starting to come up pretty fast. it was time to go. >> are you ready? >> i am ready. >> okay. prepare to abandon the aircraft. >> eject, eject, eject. >> it's an explosive situation. you're literally sitting on a rocket. >> the jet is completely

destroyed but both pilots survive the violent ejection process. >> in our case, with this airplane with a miniature detonating cord in the canopy above you, which literally explodes the canopy so the seat can go through faster. it's a big huge explosion. i remember one of the biggest memories of the whole event was the big white flash right in my face. it felt like i exploded myself. then the seat goes up to 20 g acceleration as it takes you up the rail. the ejection force itself, i really remembered it very strong pain in the small of my back and when the chute opened up again, it was just a reconfirmed the pain in my back. i hit the ground pretty hard and i did further damage to myself. i broke my femur. the femur shattered on contact. >> having bitter luck, the british pilot escapes with only minor injuries and captain hut cheats death by only the slimmest margin.

>> i was probably doing about 33 feet per second when i hit the ground and all the data out there says that anything more than about 35 feet per second is probably a fatal rate. >> so what went wrong? investigators find the wing of a small bird in the wreckage. it's a franklin's gull, common to the air field but generally too small to do this much damage so it makes sense when investigators find that the gull isn't the only thing that the engine has ingested. >> as the bird came down the side on my aircraft, it actually hit the probe before it ended up going in the engine. >> and the metal probe, a sensor that indicates the plane's angle on the horizon, broke off and chewed up the inside of the engine, causing the failure. it all proves that sometimes the smallest creatures can cause the biggest problems. >> they can do lots of damage. you just have to be aware of them.

>> eject, eject, eject! coming up -- 11 stories become nine stories and this would-be demolition becomes another kind of story altogether. >> things did not go quite according to plan on saturday. >> i don't think they really knew what to do or how to react.

at just over 200 feet, the zip tower feed mill in south dakota stood as the tallest building for 50 years. but in 2005, it becomes the tallest leaning building. this sioux falls native has something in common with the leaning tower. >> it was built in 1935, the year the zip top was originally

built at this site. it was supposedly the largest and most modern feed manufacturing plant in all of the united states. there was still a lot of pride in it. >> over the years, hundreds of sioux falls residents worked there. but by 2000, the work moved on and that's when the building closed. that's when jeff saw an opportunity for his company. >> i'm a long time sioux falls resident. i'm dedicated to my community. i needed more space for my growing business and i started looking for available properties. >> the zip tower mill land on the east of the sioux river fits the bill. in 2005, jeff purchases the property, determined to demolish the 11-story landmark. >> we were looking at bids for exploding it and for bids for just taking it down the old-fashion way with the ball and chain. >> but the zip is one story taller than the highest wrecking crane in the state. so it must be taken down with

explosives. jeff ceases the opportunity to raise funds for a cause dear to his heart. >> my daughter was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis so i said i'm going to turn this into a fund-raiser. >> a rookie reporter at the time jumps at the time to cover the event. >> we knew it was for a great cause. the tallest building in dakota is coming down and you want to be here for that. >> so we went out and sold tickets for the person who pushes the button. >> they call the event boom and print thousands of raffle tickets to sell. >> in a little less than six weeks' time, we sold 50,000 tickets. >> they were expecting thousands and thousands of people. how exactly are they going to do this, to blow up the biggest building in south dakota? is anybody going to get hurt? >> authorities set up a wide perimeter. because there is so much land around the building, the plan is to tip the zip over like a tree rather than implode it straight

down. that way, fewer explosives are required, according to demolition site manager, eric schuller. >> it was a very solid structure. so install enough explosives would have been a pretty big feat. to tip it over, it was a lot easier method. the explosive experts removed concrete in between the columns and then installed explosives in those columns. the plan was then to remove that support structure similar to falling a tree, creating a wedge for a tree to fall down to the east. >> on december 6th, 2005, with tens of thousands watching in person and on tv, the zip's time has come. >> 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 -- >> whoa.

>> the zip dips but it doesn't tip. >> instead of going over like i knew it was supposed to, it fell into this hole. a story and a half was blown out of it and there was really only one metal pipe that broke off. otherwise, the entire structure stood. had the contractor said, what's going on? we said, we don't know. we're not sure why it didn't go down. it may still fall. so we've got to be real careful. >> so why did the building tip but not topple? when the blast knocks out the lower floor, the remaining floors rush down and crush a foundation softened by years of standing water. once in the hole, the zip just sticks. >> this has been great because it says, i'm not going down without a fight. >> there was a 15-foot deep basement under the structure that was actually blasted into quartzite.

quartzite is like granite, very solid. it came down and sat in that footprint. >> people were still just kind of dumbfounded by the whole situation. i don't really think they knew what to do or how to react as opposed to just laugh at it. well, we'll see what they do now. can they blow it up again? can they bring any more dynamite? can they bring in more explosives in how long is it going to stay like this? will it be the leaning tower of sioux falls? no one knew. >> things did not go quite according to plan. and now sioux falls has its own leaning tower. >> the explosion shortened approximately 40 feet in mere seconds. so the building went from 205 feet to roughtly 160 feet tall, so the wrecking ball could reach the rest of the building and bring the top of it down. >> it takes three weels to finish the job. during that time, the leaning tower of zip makes national news. and thousands more visit during

the holiday season making donations to the ms foundation totaling more than $150,000. >> i would say another 20, 30% came in after the fact because of the way this thing all turned out. >> if it had just fallen over, okay, it's over. it's what we expected. it was the blooper of it all. >> the initial demolition may have been a bust but that blooper led to something quite progressive. the zip's soft concrete is crushed, recycled, and laid into the foundation of the new building. sharapa place. >> it's not the tallest building in south dakota anymore, but it's still there. it's still part of south dakota. >> the zip may be down, but it's legend has only grown. and that's physical proof that the best laid schemes of mice and men often go askew. we will give credit to poet robert burns, who wrote that in 1785 in scotland. so it's probably safe to assume that what went wrong is a concept that is both universal and timeless. i'm contessa brewer.

that's all for this edition of "caught on camera." raging fires. deadly flames. a massive explosion rips through a california community. >> oh, my god! ah! >> highways become infernos. >> this is one of the most dangerous areas of interstate 40. >> firefighters face death in the line of duty. >> the closest i ever want to come to near death experience. >> go, go! >> and a day of celebration descends into chaos. >> at one point the fireworks were going 40, 50 feet up in the air. >> it's not my time to go, that's all i can think of. caught on camera: up in