Air Disasters

A landing goes wrong when Delta Airlines Flight 191 is hit by an invisible force.

Chalk's Ocean Airways flight 101 crashes just after take-off from Watson Island in Miami.

In 1978, passengers and seven people on the ground die when a PSA flight crashed into a Cessna.

The emergency landing of a Reeve Aleutian Airlines plane over the Pacific Ocean.

Can a generation gap actually cause a catastrophic air disaster? Witness the story of BEA Flight 548, a scheduled passenger flight from London Heathrow to Brussels, which crashed in June of 1972 shortly after take-off near the town of Staines, England. All 118 people on board were killed. The accident became known as the Staines air disaster and, as of 2018, remains the deadliest air accident to take place in the United Kingdom and also marks the highest death toll involving a Hawker Siddeley Trident.

The 1988 flight of Aloha Airlines Flight 243, which saw the top of its fuselage torn off due to an explosive decompression, is recalled.

An August 2005 incident in which an Airbus A340 skidded off a runway, endangering the lives of more than 300 people on board, is investigated.

One of the worst crashes in British history has a stunning cause that changed aviation safety forever.

In 1996, at Quincy Regional Airport in Illinois, United Express Flight 5925, a Beechcraft 1900 twin turboprop, collided on landing with another Beechcraft, a private King Air, that was taking off from an intersecting runway. Why did the fiery collision turn to tragedy, causing all twelve on board the 1900 and two on board the King Air, to perish when they were unable to escape the burning aircraft?

A private Learjet carrying golf legend and reigning U.S. Open champion Payne Stewart takes off from Orlando heading for Dallas in 1999. But within minutes, air traffic control loses contact with the aircraft. The situation grows more urgent when the plane begins an unplanned trajectory across the Midwest. Air Force F-16 fighter planes scramble to intercept the Learjet, only to discover that the pilots and passengers are dead. The only question is why it happened.

After a long delay on a hot July evening in 1996, TWA Flight 800 leaves John F. Kennedy Airport carrying 230 passengers and crew en route to Paris. Minutes after takeoff, the Boeing 747 jumbo jet suddenly explodes without warning, killing everyone aboard. Was it a bomb? A missile? A design flaw? To find the answer, the NTSB must attempt the unthinkable: rebuild the entire plane, piece by shattered piece.

Emery Worldwide Flight 17 leaves Sacramento Mather Airport in February 2000 while carrying a load of freight containers. Upon takeoff, the aircraft dives repeatedly and banks to the left. The pilots attempt to regain control of the crippled plane and return to the airport, but the DC-8 crashes a mile from the runway, killing all three crewmembers. Investigators suspect the cargo was loaded improperly, until a much more troubling cause is discovered upon closer examination.

See what happens when an airbus A330 loses power to both its engines over the South China Sea.

Some of the deadliest air disasters in history have been caused by simple miscommunications. A tiny error in the cockpit brings tragedy to Quincy Airport in Illinois. A moment of confusion turns a routine flight in Sumatra into chaos. And a runway mix-up on the island of Tenerife sends two jumbo jets on a collision course. Watch these disasters unfold and see how safety investigators responded to prevent human misunderstandings from triggering future catastrophes.

Witness the final minutes of PIA Flight 268 and discover why it crashed into a mountain just minutes from landing.

Enter the cockpit of a high-tech turboprop as its pilots battle to keep their plane from slamming into the North Sea.

Discover the surprising reason why a Boeing 737 took a deadly nosedive after circling the runway for two hours.

The pilots of Crossair Flight 3597 struggle on their approach to Zurich Airport, hampered by bad weather, an understaffed control tower, and a runway using antiquated equipment. By the time they decide to abort the landing, it's too late. The plane plunges into a hillside, killing 24 of the 33 on board. It's Switzerland's worst air disaster in over a decade and investigators are pressured to find answers fast. What they discover is a series of errors that will lead to sweeping changes to the airport and to the airline.

A twin-engine turboprop carrying 15 people on a flight from St. Louis is on final approach to Kirksville, Missouri. Visibility is poor, but the pilots appear to have the runway lights in sight. When the plane crashes into a wooded area just 1.2 miles from the airport, it's up to the NTSB to find out what happened in the final seconds of Corporate Airlines Flight 5966.

History's most terrifying air disasters, and the investigations that followed, are revisited and reexamined.

Twenty minutes after taking off from Taipei, a China Airlines 747 suddenly disappears from radar. A massive rescue mission is launched.

Mistaken identity and hostile fire over enemy territory are among the many risks that pilots face in war zones around the world.

Alaska Airlines 261 nosedives into the Pacific leaving investigators stumped . A rare storm and a deadly design flaw intersect cause American Eagle 4184 to fall from the sky. And, investigators suspect a fatal flaw in the Boeing 737.

A massive explosion tears a hole in a 747 over Hawaii, and the trail of clues ultimately leads investigators to a catastrophic short circuit.