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Design innovations evolve as a result of terrible air disasters due to pressurization failure or explosive decompression.

Air Disasters

Ripped Apart

A freight train carrying an excess of cargo loses its brakes while descending a mountain causing it to gain speed and derail into a neighborhood killing several people.

Runaway Train

A blade on the left-side propeller of Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight breaks off; the imbalance of the rotating propeller causes the engine to partly tear itself from its mounting.

A Wounded Bird

A cockpit window on British Airways Flight blows out, partially ejecting and injuring the captain; the co-pilot completes an emergency landing.

Blow Out

When Air Transat Flight 236 runs out of fuel over the Atlantic, its pilots desperately try to keep their Airbus A330 in the air until they reach land.

Flying on Empty

A cleaning crew makes a careless error while cleaning a Boeing 757, affecting the plane's computer system and causing it to crash into the Pacific Ocean.

Flying Blind

A 747's cargo door opens at 23,000 feet, causing an explosive decompression that ejects nine passengers from the plane.

Unlocking Disaster

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Statistically, traveling by airplane is safer than driving and other forms of transportation, but when something goes wrong during a flight, it can be catastrophic with potentially hundreds of lives at stake. This series examines some of the world's worst air disasters, using official reports, transcripts and interviews with people involved to tell the stories of midair mishaps and discover what went wrong in each case. Episodes include a discussion of how the weather affects flights -- including stories of aviation disasters and near-misses -- and a New Year's Eve flight that fell from the sky into the Florida Everglades.

S18 E14 | A Wounded Bird

E22 | Ripped Apart

E19 | Runaway Train

E14 | A Wounded Bird

E13 | Blow Out

E12 | Flying on Empty

E10 | Flying Blind

E7 | Unlocking Disaster