Air Disasters Season 20, Episode 18: Courage in the Cockpit

1

Headline News

American 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.

44 min

2

Rookie Errors

While commercial pilots undergo hundreds of hours of training and testing, even experienced pilots can make deadly rookie errors.

44 min

3

Collision Course

Authorities 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.

44 min

4

Engines Out

When an aircraft loses total engine power, a pilot's training can make all the difference in the world.

44 min

5

Fuel Trouble

Three mysterious accidents send investigators hunting for clues. In the end, all three trails lead back to the same source - the fuel tank.

44 min

6

Perilous Payload

Three 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.

44 min

7

Runway in Sight

If pilots aren't prepared when the runway is in sight, a landing can quickly become a tragedy.

44 min

8

Deadly Confusion

Spatial disorientation is one of the leading causes of all air accidents. Even the most experienced pilots are susceptible to its subtle yet deadly effects.

44 min

9

Radio Silence

Radio 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.

44 min

10

Design Flaws

When 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.

44 min

11

Heat of the Moment

Dashcam 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.

44 min

12

Instrument Confusion

A 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.

44 min

13

VIP on Board

Airplane crashes involving high-profile passengers—including a top diplomat and a Brazilian football team—put investigators under intense pressure to come up with answers.

44 min

14

Lapse in Security

Traced to a breakdown of vital safety measures, three horrific disasters provoke fundamental changes to airport security procedures around the world.

44 min

15

Mountain Impact

Following three deadly crashes, investigators uncover dangerous mathematical flaws in the very operations systems designed to prevent aircraft from flying into mountains.

44 min

16

Survivors

From the wreckage of three airplane crashes, survivors emerge to tell harrowing tales and provide critical data about what to do in an emergency.

44 min

17

Death from Above

Mid-air tragedies are particularly horrifying when they occur over a community, and rain terror on the people below.

44 min

18

Courage in the Cockpit

Devastating failures in the air put pilots to the test, and shine a light on three astonishing feats of flying.

44 min

19

Maintenance Mistakes

A trio of crashes reveals that when the nuts and bolts of maintenance go unchecked, it can spell catastrophe.

44 min

20

Take Off Tragedies

Three flights ending in tragedy prove that minor missteps during takeoff can have disastrous consequences.

44 min

21

Dead of Night

Confused, flying blind, and lost in the dark, three crews lose site of the horizon and fall into the same deadly trap.

44 min

22

Engine Gone

Three crews experience the same devastating event; but with radically different outcomes when an engine falls off their commercial airplane.

44 min

23

Lethal Choices

Faced with a midair crisis, pilots must make a life or death decision, but the wrong approach can trigger a far more serious problem.

44 min

24

Risky Runways

In Sao Paolo, the Himalayas, and on the Norwegian coast, the toughest landings on earth pushed three flight crews.

44 min

25

Landings Gone Wrong

Relying on instinct rather than the rule book, three flights end in tragedy when crews improvise on their final approach.

44 min

26

Frozen Wings

Three planes are brought down by ice and it's up to investigators to determine how modern aircraft could possibly end up with frozen wings.

44 min

27

Runway Collisions

Three catastrophic runway collisions raise the same pressing question; a look at how two planes end up on the same runway at the same time.

44 min

28

Cockpit Breakdown

Three flights end in tragedy after miscommunication mix-ups and personality clashes; Investigators try to unravel what went wrong.

45 min

29

Splash Down

Three last-resort water landings, all handled differently yet each one crucial to improving the outcomes of ditching on open water.

44 min

30

Northern Extremes

Faced with the extreme conditions of the far North, three flights fall out of the sky leaving investigators to uncover the cause.

44 min