Browse - Most popular shows featuring: human error^x

Our worst nightmares in the sky, caused by engine failure and human mistakes are combated with courage and may end up in amazing miracles or disasters.

A wedding flyover that turned tragic. A commuter flight that mysteriously veered off course and slammed into a mountain. A pilot and passenger who survived a crash only to succumb to the raging currents of an icy waterway. These are just a few of roughly 100 aircraft accidents that occurred in Alaska in 2015 and challenged one of the busiest and most unique offices of the National Transportation Safety Board. Follow NTSB investigators as they attempt to determine the probable cause of each crash, be it man, machine, or environment.

Every air crash is a catastrophe that leaves behind bereaved families and ruined lives. But each air crash is also a lesson learnt, and because of each disaster we now know how to build safer planes, evacuate passengers more swiftly, and better avoid collisions. Lives have been saved because of what these tragedies have taught us, and yet, despite this progress, more and more disasters still happen. Using powerful personal accounts from survivors, pilots and witnesses as well as comments from aviation experts and CGI, each episode of Air Crash Confidential investigates a selection of aviation disasters to reveal how and why tragedy still happens. It will discover why, despite repeated warnings, terrorists remain one step ahead of airport security, and how only a seating plan error and some sweaty feet saved hundreds from being blown up in mid- air. We will also reveal how a computer designed to eliminate pilot error led to a Qantas flight plummeting hundreds of feet, and that however brilliant our technology, human error can never be entirely eliminated - Air Traffic controller Pieter Nielsen was eventually murdered because of a mistake he made on a busy day that caused the deaths of 45 schoolchildren.

Through extensive archive and expert interviews this series explores the stories behind mankind's greatest engineering disasters.