Air Crash Investigations

Rain, hail, wind - in a heartbeat bad weather can turn an ordinary flight into a nightmare. Tonight we follow the essential work of the US Aviation Weather Centre, which plays a vital role in protecting planes from potentially lethal weather.

November 12, 1996. Above one of India's busiest airports, the sky ignites as flaming wreckage falls following a horrifying crash. When investigators arrive, they find the twisted remains of two passenger jets and 349 people dead. The vital clues are buried deep underground and investigators must piece together the days events. How could two crews who should have know each others position end up in

April 4, 1975. At the end of the Vietnam War, the U.S. army loaded hundreds of orphans onto their largest transport aircraft plane to fly them to safety. Only minutes into their escape, the plane lost control and crashed in a paddy field near the airport. Sadly, only half of the children onboard survived. The investigation began immediately, as officials searched desperately for an answer to why t

On 11 July 1991, shortly after taking-off from Jeddah's King Abdulaziz International Airport, Nigeria Airways Flight 2120 suffered an in-flight fire. The crew unsuccessfully tried to return to the airport, the plane breaking up within sight of the runway. The plane was carrying 247 Nigerian pilgrims and 14 crew who all perished in the accident. Aviation experts work to determine what caused the fi

On February 8, 1986 a calm trip through the Rocky Mountains ends in disaster, when a VIA Rail train slams head-on into an enormous freight train. How did the two trains wind up on the same piece of track? An inquiry makes shocking discoveries about the men who run the freight trains in Canada.

On the evening of 26 September 2000, the Greek ferry, Express Samina, was on its normal route between Athens and the island of Paros when it smashed into a huge rock. It took fifty minutes for the ferry to sink into the freezing and dark waters. With over five hundred people onboard, eighty people were lost at sea. The investigation pieces together survivor's accounts and forensic evidence making