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

Air Disasters

Courage in the Cockpit

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; radio silence between pilots and air traffic controllers send investigators hunting for answers.

Design Flaws

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

Runway in Sight

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.

Perilous Payload

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

S20 E19 | Maintenance Mistakes

E18 | Courage in the Cockpit

E10 | Design Flaws

E7 | Runway in Sight

E6 | Perilous Payload