Minute by Minute (2014)

The first episode follows the events of the London bombings of July 7, 2005. When four Islamic extremists detonated suicide bombs on three Tube trains and a double-decker bus, killing 52 passengers and injuring hundreds more. Featuring contributions by former Minister for London Tessa Jowell and coroner Dr Paul Knapman, as well as Thelma Stober, who survived the explosion at Aldgate, and Esther Hyman, whose sister Miriam was a victim of the Tavistock Square bus bomb.

On 21st December 1988, Pan Am flight 103, a Boeing 747, took off from London bound for New York. Less than 40 minutes later, it exploded over the town of Lockerbie in the Dumfries and Galloway region of southwest Scotland. In all, 270 people from 21 countries were killed, including all 259 passengers and crew members, plus 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie. On 31st January 2001, after a belated three-year investigation, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, an alleged former Libyan intelligence officer, was convicted of mass murder by a panel of three Scottish judges and sentenced to life imprisonment. He died in 2012 after being granted compassionate release on medical grounds and remains the only person to have been convicted of this attack. Although Libya initially denied any involvement, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi finally accepted responsibility for the atrocity in 2003. More than a quarter of a century after that fateful night, this crime remains the single largest aviation disaster in Britain’s history as well as its deadliest act of terrorism. This minute-by-minute account of events explores how an unaccompanied suitcase containing a Semtex bomb hidden inside a cassette player was transported on three separate flights before arriving at London Heathrow without being detected. The programme features archive footage, new interviews with key witnesses and personal accounts from family members who lost loved ones in the atrocity.

The King's Cross fire broke out on 18 November 1987 at approximately 19:30 at King's Cross St. Pancras tube station, a major interchange on the London Underground. The fire killed 31 people. As well as the mainline railway stations above ground and subsurface platforms for the Metropolitan lines, there were platforms deeper underground for the Northern, Piccadilly, and Victoria lines. The fire started on an escalator serving the Piccadilly Line and approximately 15 minutes after being reported, as the first members of the London Fire Brigade were investigating, the fire flashed over, filling the underground ticket office with heat and smoke. This documentary features interviews with firefighters, political observers and others who witnessed the worst fire in the history of the London Underground and a dramatic wake up call for safety on the network.

The sinking of the Marchioness pleasure cruiser on the Thames in August 1989 was the UK's worst river disaster in more than 50 years, resulting in the deaths of 51 people. This documentary details the events leading up to and immediately after the tragedy from the perspective of some of the survivors and relatives of the deceased. It also examines the battle for a public inquiry and legal reforms in the aftermath of the incident.

In the early hours of October 12, 1984, a bomb went off in the Grand Hotel in Brighton, where the Conservative Party's annual conference was being held. This documentary charts the events leading up to the IRA attack, which was intended to kill Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her Cabinet, hearing from Thatcher's private secretary Robin Butler, minister Norman Tebbit, whose wife was severely injured by the blast, and author Michael Dobbs, then a government adviser. There are also contributions by local journalists and rescue workers.

Documentary looking minute by minute at the events of 11 September, 2001. The programme examines the attacks through the eyes of survivors, relatives of those who died and other observers who were there on the day. Two UK-based relatives explain how they learnt about the atrocities from their homes in Britain, and how they dealt with the aftermath.