Air Disasters (2011)
Harrowing stories of tragedy and triumph are brought to life through official reports, transcripts and interviews with the pilots, air traffic controllers and lucky survivors of history's most terrifying crashes. Widely considered to be the safest form of travel, air transportation is still in its infancy and when midair calamity strikes, the results are often catastrophic. From the cockpit to the cabin, from the control room to the crash scene, we uncover just what went wrong.
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Episode 1 - Headline News
Release Date: 2023-07-30American Airlines Flight 77 slams into the Pentagon on America's darkest day of the 21st century. TWA Flight 800 explodes over Long Island minutes after leaving JFK. The supersonic superstar Concorde crashes into an airport hotel after a failed takeoff from Paris. All three air disasters made headline news around the globe, creating media frenzies, igniting conspiracy theories, and putting immense pressure on investigators. In this episode, we revisit these three accidents and follow examiners as they uncover the truth behind the tragedies.
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Episode 2 - Rookie Errors
Release Date: 2023-08-06While commercial pilots undergo hundreds of hours of training and testing, even experienced pilots can make deadly rookie errors.
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Episode 3 - Collision Course
Release Date: 2023-08-13Authorities scramble for answers when a passenger plane collides with a military fighter jet in California, and two commercial planes meet a similar fate decades later in India. Investigators comb through the wreckage of three separate midair collisions in a race to prevent another fatal impact.
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Episode 4 - Engines Out
Release Date: 2023-08-20When an aircraft loses total engine power, a pilot's training can make all the difference in the world.
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Episode 5 - Fuel Trouble
Release Date: 2023-08-27Three mysterious accidents send investigators hunting for clues. In the end, all three trails lead back to the same source - the fuel tank.
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Episode 6 - Perilous Payload
Release Date: 2023-09-03Three planes fatally out of balance force investigators to question every calculation. It's a flight risk that's entirely preventable, and yet repeated disasters reconfirm the need for critical backup systems.
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Episode 7 - Runway in Sight
Release Date: 2023-09-10If pilots aren't prepared when the runway is in sight, a landing can quickly become a tragedy.
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Episode 8 - Deadly Confusion
Release Date: 2023-09-17Spatial disorientation is one of the leading causes of all air accidents. Even the most experienced pilots are susceptible to its subtle yet deadly effects.
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Episode 9 - Radio Silence
Release Date: 2023-09-24Radio silence between pilots and air traffic controllers can mean many different things, but only the physical evidence can reveal the true story. Three shocking cases send investigators hunting for answers.
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Episode 10 - Design Flaws
Release Date: 2023-10-01When former race car driver Niki Lauda's planes nosedives into a Thai jungle, a one-in-a-million failure reveals a weak spot in every Boeing 767.
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Episode 11 - Heat of the Moment
Release Date: 2024-01-07Dashcam footage aids in the investigation of a fatal TransAsia crash, experts determine the cause of a botched emergency landing, and a test flight for a revolutionary aircraft turns deadly.
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Episode 12 - Instrument Confusion
Release Date: 2024-01-14A Boeing 737 vanishes off the radar, a South Korean jet slams into the English countryside moments after takeoff, and an inexperienced crew faces a pileup of errors on a flight over Russia. When critical instruments cause confusion, the consequences can be deadly.
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Episode 13 - VIP on Board
Release Date: 2024-01-21Airplane crashes involving high-profile passengers—including a top diplomat and a Brazilian football team—put investigators under intense pressure to come up with answers.
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Episode 14 - Lapse in Security
Release Date: 2024-01-28Traced to a breakdown of vital safety measures, three horrific disasters provoke fundamental changes to airport security procedures around the world.
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Episode 15 - Mountain Impact
Release Date: 2024-02-04Following three deadly crashes, investigators uncover dangerous mathematical flaws in the very operations systems designed to prevent aircraft from flying into mountains.
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Episode 16 - Survivors
Release Date: 2024-02-11From the wreckage of three airplane crashes, survivors emerge to tell harrowing tales and provide critical data about what to do in an emergency.
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Episode 17 - Death from Above
Release Date: 2024-02-18Mid-air tragedies are particularly horrifying when they occur over a community, and rain terror on the people below.
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Episode 18 - Courage in the Cockpit
Release Date: 2024-02-25Devastating failures in the air put pilots to the test, and shine a light on three astonishing feats of flying.