Air Crash Investigation - Mayday

July 17th, 2007 TAM Airlines Flight #3054 is on its final approach to Sao Paolo's notorious Congonhas Airport. Runway 35-L at Congonhas is one of the busiest and most treacherous airports in the world. It's built on a hilltop, completely surrounded by tall buildings. The crew of Flight #3054 gets a report that the runway is wet and slippery. Captain Henrique Stephanini brings his Airbus A-320 down at the foot of the 1,945 meter long runway, activates the one working reverse thruster and applies the brakes, but his plane doesn't slow down. It hurtles down the runway at top speed, crosses a highway and slams into a building and adjacent gas station. No one on the plane survives. Twelve people on the ground are also killed. This is the worst aviation disaster in South American history. Investigators are under enormous pressure to figure out what went wrong on Brazil's busiest runway, before it claims any more lives. « read less

December 12th, 1985 After a six-month peace keeping mission in the Middle East, 248 elite American soldiers are on their way home for the Christmas holidays. Destined for Fort Campbell, Kentucky, they are travelling on Arrow Air Flight #1285, a discount air carrier contracted by the military to transport troops. En route from Cairo, the DC-8 eventually touches down for a routine refueling stop in Gander, Newfoundland. But just seconds after taking off again for the last leg of its journey, the plane immediately loses airspeed and altitude and crashes into a heavily wooded area just outside the remote Canadian town. An unprecedented disaster, it is one of the deadliest aviation accidents of all time and the resulting investigation ignites a storm of controversy that continues to this day. « read less

On 6 February 1958, British European Airways Flight 609, carrying members of the famed Manchester United football team, crashed shortly after taking off from Munich, killing 23 aboard. « read less

On 22 December 1999, a cargo flight operating as Korean Air Cargo Flight 8509 left London Stansted Airport for Milan, Italy, crashed about 55 seconds after taking off. All 4 crew members died in the disaster. « read less

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. « read less

On 24 May 1988, TACA Airlines Flight 110, a Boeing 737 flew through a thunderstorm and suffered a dual engine flameout. The pilots amazingly managed to land on a grass levee close to a nearby stream at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in the Michoud area of eastern New Orleans, USA. All onboard survived. « read less

On 19 July 1989, United Airlines Flight 232's DC-10 was crippled when an engine explodes causing serious damage to the vital hydraulics system causing the plane to go out of control. The plane managed to land at Sioux City but the plane erupted into a fireball shortly after. « read less