Mayday – Specials
Episodes
Final Hour of Flight 11 Aircrash Confidential Mystery
Crash of the Century
March 27, 1977 – At 2:00 in the afternoon a thick fog rolled into the usually quiet Los Rodeos Airport in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. On the runway sat two fully loaded jumbo airliners, blanketed in fog. A bomb explosion at a nearby airport had re-directed air traffic to the undermanned airfield at Tenerife. Within three hours, a KLM 747 slams into a taxiing PAM 747, killing 583 people. The planes never left the ground.
Special Report Season 13: Getting Out Alive
This special looked at how people survive aviation accidents, in part with demonstrations at the Czech Airlines Training Centre. It provided case studies on the following flight: - Asiana Airlines Flight 214 - Air France Flight 358 - Reeve Aleutian Airways Flight 8 - Air Canada Flight 797 - US Airways Flight 1549
Special Report Season 18 : Communication Breakdown
This special looked at how failures in communication lead to disasters
Special Report Season 18 : Bad Attitude
This special looked at how pilots' aggressive or unprofessional behaviour can cause deadly accidents.
Special Report Season 18 : Hero Pilots
This special looked at how pilots safely land their aircraft in emergency situations.
Special Report Season 18 : Plane vs. Pilot
This special looked at how automation in the cockpit causes deadly misunderstandings.
Special Report Season 18 : Explosive Evidence
This special looked at terrorist acts, including bombings and shootdowns.
Special Report Season 18 : Killer in the Cockpit?
This special looked at pilots' carefully planned strategies in deliberately crashing aircraft.
Special Report Season 18 : Missing Pieces
This special looked at foreign items, including ice, a chemical oxygen generator, and a bomb as the cause.
Special Report Season 18 : Controversial Crashes
This special looked at disasters where multiple investigations don't agree on the cause of these accidents.
Special Report Season 18 : Deadly Distractions
This special looked at how pilots' deviation from cockpit duties lead to crashes.
Special Report Season 18 : Fire on Board
This special looked at disasters caused by fires, either on the ground or in the air.
Special Report Season 19 : Headline News
Three devastating crashes make front page news and the media frenzy puts intense pressure to uncover the true cause of these deadly disasters.
Special Report Season 19 : Rookie Errors
While commercial pilots undergo hundreds of hours of training and testing, even experienced pilots can make deadly rookie errors.
Special Report Season 19 : Collision Course
Investigators comb through the wreckage of three separate midair collisions in a race to prevent another fatal impact.
Special Report Season 19 : Engines Out
When an aircraft loses total engine power, a pilot's training can make all the difference in the world.
Special Report Season 19 : 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.
Special Report Season 19 : Perilous Payloads
Three planes fatally out of balance highlight to investigators a flight risk that's entirely preventable, and yet seemingly not stopping.
Special Report Season 19 : Runway in Sight
If pilots aren't prepared when the runway is in sight, a landing can quickly become a tragedy as evidenced in these three crashes.
Special Report Season 19 : 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.
Special Report Season 19 : Radio Silence
Radio silence between pilots and controllers can mean many different things, but in these stories, the physical evidence reveals the truth.
Special Report Season 19 : Design Flaws
Drawing the attention of the entire world, three fatal design flaws put air crash investigators in a storm of controversy.
Special Report Season 20: Courage in the Cockpit
Devastating systems failures in the air put pilots to the test and shine a light on three astonishing feats of flying, including Qantas Flight 32.
Special Report Season 20: Death From Above
Mid-air tragedies are particularly horrifying when they occur over a community, and rain terror on the people below.
Special Report Season 20: VIP on Board
Revisit three crashes involving high-profile passengers and the pressurized investigations into the causes that followed.
Special Report Season 20: Lapse in Security
These are three horrific air disasters that provoked fundamental changes to airport security and the measures we follow across the world today.
Special Report Season 20: Mountain Impact
Follow three horrifying crashes that revealed high-tech blind spots in the technology preventing aircraft from ploughing into mountains.
Special Report Season 20: 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.
Special Report Season 20: Instrument Confusion
Follow three mid-air tragedies that rained terror on those below when they happened over crowded areas.
Special Report Season 20: Heat of the Moment
When aviation decisions are made in the heat of the moment, even minor issues can have fatal consequences.
Special Report Season 20: Maintenance Mistakes
A trio of crashes reveal that when the nuts and bolts of maintenance go unchecked, it can spell catastrophe.
Special Report Season 20: Take Off Tragedies
Three flights ending in tragedy prove that minor missteps during take-off can have disastrous consequences.
Special Report: 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.
Special Report: Engine Gone
Three crews experience the same devastating event, but with radically different outcomes when an engine falls off their commercial airplane.
Special Report: Lethal Choices
Faced with a mid-air crisis, pilots must make life-and-death decisions, but the wrong approach can trigger a far more serious problem.
Special Report: Risky Runways
In Sao Paolo, the Himalayas, and on the Norwegian coast, three flight crews are pushed to the limit by the toughest landings on earth.
Special Report: Landings Gone Wrong
Relying on instinct rather than the rule book, three flights end in tragedy when crews improvise on their final approach.
Special Report: 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.
Special Report: Runway Collisions
Three catastrophic runway collisions raise the same pressing question: How could two planes end up on the same runway at the same time?
Special Report: Cockpit Breakdown
Illustrating the deadly consequences of a mismatched crew, three flights end in tragedy, leaving investigators to unravel what went wrong.
Special Report: Splash Down
Three last-resort water landings-all handled differently-yet each one crucial to improving the outcomes of ditching on open water.
Special Report: Northern Extremes
Faced with the extreme conditions of the far North, three flights fall out of the sky leaving investigators to uncover the cause.
Special Report: War Zone
Misidentification and accidental bombing of enemy territory are among the many risks pilots face in military zones around the world.
Special Report: Time Critical
As they rush to finish, some pilots overlook important steps and danger signs and make decisions that threaten the lives of the passengers as well as their own. A Turkish Airlines Boeing 737 crashes into the ground minutes after landing at Amsterdam Airport. A Continental Airlines flight crew ignores normal procedures in Denver amid heavy snow and ice and as the pilots of Ansett New Zealand Flight 703 try to resolve a minor landing gear failure, they hit the ground and their approach ends tragically wrong in the New Zealand slopes.
Special Report: Ticking Time Bomb
Special Report: Impossible Landings
The pilots avoid three dangerous situations where there was no room for error and manage to land damaged planes. A female passenger is sucked out the window of Southwest Flight 1380. The cabin of a Boeing 737 explodes over Hawaii and Air Canada Flight 797 catches fire 90 seconds after an incredible crash landing.
Special Report: Deadly Data
Special Report: Trained to Fail
Special Report: Accidents in the Air
This special looked at mid-air collisions caused by either pilot error or meltdowns within air traffic control.
Special Report: Dangerous Winds
Approaching Charlotte, US Air Flight 1016 crashes violently into the ground after a gust of wind. A 737 drops like a rock while flying blind over Perú half a mile from the jungle, and a scientific expedition into the eye of Hurricane Hugo goes terribly wrong.
Special Report: Sabotage
Three flights are sabotaged. When hijackers break into the cockpit of an Ethiopian plane, the captain manages to make a life-threatening sea landing. Scientists debate a pair of conflicting theories when an Italian plane explodes in the sky and Namibian investigators come to a chilling conclusion after examining clues found in the wreckage of LAM Mozambique Flight 470.
Special Report: Poor Piloting
Special Report: Pitch Problems
Accidents caused by pitch problems are dramatic and destructive, and survival is almost impossible. Very few clues are available to the investigators. Alaska Airlines Flight 261, American Eagle Flight 4184 and United Airlines Flight 585
Special Report: Fight to the Finish
Pushed to the limits of their training and willpower, three flight crews fight against almost impossible odds to land their crippled aircraft. Transair Flight 671, Air Astana Flight 1388 and Philippine Airlines Flight 434.
Special Report: Bad Data
With all the advances in technology and safety, sometimes a safe flight is still at risk when the data used is incorrect or misleading. USAF B-2 Bomber, Independant Air Flight 1851 and Birgenair Flight 301
Special Report: Landing Hazards
Three disasters reveal how poor weather threatens a safe landing, with heavy rain, thunderstorms and treacherous crosswinds. Martinair 495, American Airlines Flight 1572 and Air France Flight 358
Special Report: Training Ignored
Even the most highly trained pilots in the world can be caught out if they ignore their training when it is needed most. Island Express Helicopter, Corporate Airlines Flight 5966 and Comair Flight 5191.
Special Report: Reckless Approaches
An argument with no runway in sight, ignoring a critical signal and an exhausted pilot - three problems leading to three crashes. Execuflight 1526. American Eagle Flight 3379. American International Airways Flight 808.