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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

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

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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.

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Investigating the 2009 crash of Colgan Air Flight 3407; the plane stalls at low altitude and dives into a residential area near Buffalo, N.Y.

S18 E4 | Dead Tired

E22 | Ripped Apart

E19 | Runaway Train

E14 | A Wounded Bird

E13 | Blow Out

E10 | Flying Blind