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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

With its conductors sound asleep, a freight train fails to stop and collides with an oncoming passenger train, resulting in tragedy.

Head-On Collision

Avianca Flight 52 is delayed numerous times by bad weather en route and is dangerously low on fuel as it attempts a landing at New York City.

Missing Over New York

An American Airlines Flight en route to Cali, Colombia loses their exact position and flies into a mountain.

Lost

A look at the string of events that caused a midair collision in 2002 over the skies of southern Germany; a Bashkirian Airlines Flight collides with a DHL Flight in German airspace near Überlingen.

Deadly Crossroads

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

Blow Out

An MD-82 crash lands in Arkansas during a severe thunderstorm, but investigators believe weather was not the main reason for the accident.

Racing the Storm

Colgan Air Flight 3407 stalls at low altitude and dives into a residential area near Buffalo, New York.

Dead Tired

Following the story of the Scandinavian Airlines Flight 751 and Captain Rasmussen.

Pilot Betrayed

Bad weather and a series of errors lead to the 2001 crash of a plane on its approach to Zurich Airport.

Cockpit Failure

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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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A look at several air disasters that involved small components that failed; accidents caused by minor defects or errors; how the follow-up investigations led to changes that have made flying safer.

S18 E23 | Fatal Flaw