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Three last-resort water landings, all handled differently yet each one crucial to improving the outcomes of ditching on open water.

Air Disasters

Splash Down

Three flights end in tragedy after miscommunication mix-ups and personality clases; Investigators try to unravel what went wrong.

Cockpit Breakdown

In Sao Paolo, the Himalayas, and on the Norwegian coast, the toughest landings on earth pushed three flight crews.

Risky Runways

Faced with a midair crisis, pilots must make a life or death decision, but the wrong approach can trigger a far more serious problem.

Lethal Choices

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

Courage in the Cockpit

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

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

Fuel Trouble

A passenger ferry sinks after crashing into rocks off the coast of a Greek island, killing 82; it leads to a shocking investigation.

Collision Course

Three devastating crashes make front-page news around the globe; the media frenzy puts intense pressure on investigators to uncover the causes.

Headline News

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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.

S20 E6 | Perilous Payload