Air Disasters

Air disasters from planes like American Airlines Flight 77 and TWA Jet Aircraft Flight 800 triggered a swarm of media coverage, new airport security measures and high-profile investigations.

In this examination of rookie errors, a botched takeoff in Buenos Aires proves fatal, an American Airlines flight crashes in New York City just after 9/11, and a plane stalls above Buffalo, NY.

Authorities scramble for answers when a passenger plane collides with a military fighter jet in California, and two commercial planes meet a similar fate decades later in India.

When an aircraft loses total engine power, a pilot’s training can make all the difference in the world, but it’s still up to investigators to determine what went wrong.

Engine failure causes a deadly crash in a suburb, a safe landing turns into an explosion, and a plane gets lost in the rainforest. These incidents all have a similar problem: loss of fuel.

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.

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

Spatial disorientation is one of the leading causes of al lair accidents. Even the most experienced pilots are susceptible to its subtle yet deadly effects.

Radio silence between pilots and air traffic controllers can mean many different things, but only the physical evidence can reveal the true story. Three shocking cases send investigators hunting for answers.

When aviation decisions are made in the heat of the moment, even minor issues can have fatal consequences. A dashcam captures the horrific crash as a Taiwanese airliner nosedives into a river. Warned of a problem that doesn't exist, a KLM crew inadvertently sparks a cascade of deadly errors. And, for a revolutionary new spacecraft, a split-second decision spells a supersonic disaster.

A Boeing 737 vanishes off the radar, a South Korean jet slams into the English countryside moments after takeoff, and an inexperienced crew faces a pileup of errors on a flight over Russia. When critical instruments cause confusion, the consequences can be deadly.

Airplane crashes involving high-profile passengers—including a top diplomat and a Brazilian football team—put investigators under intense pressure to come up with answers.

Three horrific aviation disasters are all linked to breakdowns in vital security measures.

Following three deadly crashes, investigators uncover dangerous mathematical flaws in the very operations systems designed to prevent aircraft from flying into mountains.

Survivors from three different airplane crashes emerge to tell harrowing tales and provide critical data about what to do in an emergency.

Mid-air tragedies are particularly horrifying when they occur over a community, and rain terror on the people below.

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

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

Three flights ending in tragedy, prove that minor missteps during takeoff can have disastrous consequences.

Confused, flying blind, and lost in the dark, three crews lose site of the horizon and fall into the same deadly trap.

Three crews experience the same devastating event, but with radically different outcomes when an engine falls off their commercial airplane.

Faced with a mid-air crisis, pilots must make life-and-death decisions, but the wrong approach can trigger a far more serious problem.

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

Relying on instinct rather than the rule book, three flights end in tragedy when crews improvise their final approach.

Three planes are brought down by ice and it's up to investigators to determine how modern aircraft could possibly end up with frozen wings.

Three catastrophic runway collisions raise the same pressing question: a look at how two planes end up on the same runway at the same time.

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

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

Faced with the extreme conditions of the far North, three flights fall out of the sky.

A China Airlines 747 suddenly disappears from radar and crashes, killing 225 people.

A bomb explodes on Pan Am Flight 103, causing the aircraft to disintegrate in mid-air and the wreckage of the aircraft to crash into the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing all 259 people on board and 11 people on the ground.

In September 1989, Partnair Flight 394 crashed into the sea killing all 55 people on board.

Two jets hit each other at 14,000 feet sending both planes spiraling to the ground.

Tragic story from the Vietnam War when over 250 children died in a mysterious explosion.

Pilots must ditch their plane in the Mediterranean, killing 14 of the 34 passengers.