Season 5


Season 5 originally aired in 2008 consists of 10 episodes all dealing with airplane accidents. There were a total of 1506 fatalities in this season.



 Episode 1 |  Episode 2 |  Episode 3 |  Episode 4 |  Episode 5    
 Episode 6 |  Episode 7 |  Episode 8 |  Episode 9 |  Episode 10  


Episode 1 - Air India: Explosive Evidence


  • On 23 June 1985, Air India Flight 182 exploded in mid-air and disintegrated over the coast of Ireland, killing 329 people. Investigators discovered that a bomb from Sikh militant group Babbar Khalsa caused the explosion.
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Episode 2 - Behind Closed Doors


  • On 12 June 1972, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 just a few months old, operating American Airlines Flight 96 from Detroit, Michigan to Buffalo, New York, suffered an explosive decompression after a cargo door bursts open. The crew made an emergency landing at Detroit, Michigan without any loss of life. However, the design fault with the cargo door mechanism was not rectified and two years later, Turkish Airlines Flight 981 suffered a similar blowout during a flight from Paris to London. This time the DC-10's hydraulic systems are damaged and the aircraft crashed in a forest near Senlis, killing all 346 on board.
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Episode 3 - Southern Storm


  • On 4 April 1977, Southern Airways Flight 242 was a flight from Huntsville, Alabama to Atlanta, Georgia. It flew through a severe thunderstorm and was hit by large hailstones. Both engines of the DC-9-31 failed and the aircraft made an emergency landing on a highway in New Hope, Paulding County, Georgia. However it collided with a gas station and exploded, killing 62 people on board and eight on the ground; two more died later of injuries they sustained during the crash.
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Episode 4 - Dead Weight


  • On 8 January 2003, Air Midwest Express Flight 5481 crashed into a hangar of Charlotte/Douglas International Airport seconds after take-off on a flight to Greenville.
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Episode 5 - Invisible Killer


  • On 2 August 1985, Delta Air Lines Flight 191 crashed while on approach to the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, killing eight of 11 crew members and 128 of the 152 passengers on board, and one person on the ground. This accident was one of the few commercial air crashes in which the meteorological phenomenon known as microburst-induced wind shear was a direct contributing factor.
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Episode 6 - Gimli Glider


  • On 23 July 1983, Air Canada Flight 143 ran out of fuel at 41,000 feet (12,000m) altitude, about halfway through its flight from Montreal to Edmonton. The crew was able to glide the aircraft safely to an emergency landing at Gimli Industrial Park Airport, a former airbase at Gimli, Manitoba.
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Episode 7 - Fanning the Flames


  • On 28 November 1987, South African Airways Flight 295 started filling with smoke over the Indian Ocean. A fire had erupted in the rear main level cargo area; the pilots successfully opened the doors in flight to clear the smoke from the aircraft, however it crashed with no survivors.
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Episode 8 - Fatal Distraction


  • On 29 December 1972, Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 to Miami International Airport crashed in the Everglades because the crew was distracted by a faulty landing gear indicator light, and accidentally disengage the autopilot. 101 people die.
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Episode 9 - Mixed Signals


  • On 6 February 1996, Birgenair Flight 301 was scheduled to fly from Puerto Plata to Frankfurt. On takeoff, the captain found that his air speed indicator (ASI) was not reading properly, though the co-pilot's ASI was showing the correct speed. Both pilots become confused and believe that both ASIs are malfunctioning. They lost control of the aircraft and crashed in the Atlantic. All 13 crew members and 176 passengers die.
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Episode 10 - Phantom Strike


  • On 29 September 2006, Gol Transportes Aéreos Boeing 737 and a brand-new Embraer Legacy business jet on its delivery flight collided in mid-air over the Amazon. The 737 crashed but the Legacy managed to make a safe landing. 154 people died.
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