Hard Landings

A converted Boeing 747-400 cargo plane is carrying heavy military cargo from Afghanistan. Find out how some miscalculation and not enough straps caused this plane to fall from the sky.

A Northwest Orient Airlines DC-4 is traveling from New York to Seattle with two stopovers on the way. Find out how weather and old times caused this plane to disappear in Lake Michigan.

A Pan American Boeing 707 explodes over Maryland. Find out weather and lighting caused this aircraft to explode while on approach.

An Air France A320-100 is doing a quick go around to show off the aircraft at a small air show between Switzerland and France when catastrophe occurs. Find out how a mixture of pilot error and mechanical failure causes this plane to hit trees and go up in flames.

A Southwest 737-700 runs off the end of the runway at Chicago Midway Airport. Find out how some miscalculations and bad calls caused this plane to run onto a road just beyond the airport.

An Aloha Airlines 737-200 is doing an island hop from the many islands that make up Hawaii when a structure failure causes an explosive decompression. Find out how maintenance practices and ignorance caused this plane to almost crash on its way to the Maui airport.

A 767-300 operated by Nikki Lauda’s airline Lauda Air is on its last leg of a three leg flight to Vienna. Find out how a thrust reverser caused this flight to go catastrophic and crash in the Phu Toei National Park in Thailand.

As this flight crew is on their approach they crash just miles from the threshold of the runway at Chicago Midway Airport. Find out how this crash embodies many issues in crew resource management and caused the first fatal crash of a Boeing 737.

Two Boeing 747 aircraft collide on a runway in the Canary Islands. In this part, find out what caused these two planes to collide creating the worst accident in aviation history.

Two Boeing 747 aircraft collide on a runway in the Canary Islands. In this part, find out the story behind this horrible disaster.

An A321 crashes into the Margalla Hills in Pakistan far from the airport that the plane should have been landing at. Find out how a break down in crew resource management and not following instructions caused this aircraft to smash into the hills.

A DC-9 crashes with most of a University football team/staff and government officials on board. Find out how misinterpretation or incorrect instrument use may have caused this plane to fly into a hill miles from the airport.

A Boeing 737-800 is landing in Trinidad and Tobago on a three leg flight. Find out how a tired pilot and poor crew resource management caused this aircraft to overrun the runway.

An Air France Concorde tries to make a standard take off out of the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. Find out how a lot of fuel and another plane caused this supersonic jet to catch fire and fall out of the sky.

A small flight going from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, New Mexico is climbing out to their cruising altitude. Learn what happens when they cannot see through snow and fog on their climb out. Thank you to Megan Storey for suggesting this incident! Please take a minute to check out The Blackbox Series on Youtube. It's a video summary of significant aviation disasters and how they impacted flying today....

An American Airlines A300 crashes in Queens, New York just months after 9/11. Find out how over flying the aircraft caused this terrible disaster.

Everything seems fine as a Boeing 747-100 takes off out of the San Francisco airport. Find out how some miscalculations caused there to be a giant hole ripped into this plane on take off.

A Boeing 737 has an issue with unexpected yaw and roll on their approach to Richmond, Virginia. Finally find out what had caused the series of rudder hard overs in the final part of this series!

A 737 crashes miles from the Pittsburgh International Airport. Find out about how this flight is very similar to a flight that happened years before and how this investigation stalled leaving investigators stumped.

A 737-200 crashes on approach to Colorado Springs, Colorado. Learn more about how this, the first of three accidents, started a ten year investigation into rudder hard overs.

An A320 runs off the runway and crashes in Sao Paolo, Brazil. How did anxiety cause this plane to veer off the runway?

A 727 crashes on a turn to get to the runway at the Cincinnati airport. Find out how a lack of notification, bad weather, a sense of urgency, and distraction caused this flight to crash into the ground miles from the runway.

A Boeing 727 cannot get off the ground and crashes into a small building and beach just beyond the runway. Find out how horrible organization kept this bird from taking off.

An MD-11 crashed into the ocean near the Canadian shore. Find out how some wiring and unfortunate procedures caused an in flight fire that incapacitated the plane while trying to perform an emergency landing in Canada.

A DC-8 has to return to the Jeddah airport and basically explodes on landing due to an in-flight fire. Find out how a company call caused this plane to catch fire on take off.