In 1999, a private Learjet, carrying golf icon and current U.S. Open champion Payne Stewart, ascended from Orlando toward Dallas. Yet, within minutes, air traffic control lost all communication with the aircraft. The situation rapidly deter…

From Washington Dulles International Airport, a Boeing 757 ascends toward Los Angeles. Within minutes, hijackers seize control of the cockpit, diverting the aircraft back towards the nation's capital, directly into the Pentagon. The catastr…

Fifty years have passed, yet it endures as aviation's deadliest disaster. The 1977 collision of two Boeing 747s at a small airport in the Canary Islands shocked the world and spurred a frantic investigation. This is the story of the runway …

The likelihood of a major disaster occurring once an aircraft is stationary is exceedingly slim, making the August 2007 incident aboard China Airlines Flight 120 particularly perplexing to investigators. The engines were off, passengers dis…

In 1998, a brief flight from Lyon to Brittany took a devastating turn. The pilots of Proteus Airlines Flight 706, a Beechcraft 1900D, altered their route to offer passengers a closer view of a famed French ocean liner. Moments later, the co…

In 1988, Continental Express Flight 2286, a Trans-Colorado Airlines commuter plane, traversed the Rocky Mountains en route to Durango-La Plata County Airport. Just five miles from landing, disaster struck. The runway was nowhere in sight, a…

The departure of Germanwings Flight 9525 from Barcelona to Düsseldorf on an unremarkable morning in 2015 unfolded with familiar routine. But over the French Alps, a catastrophic turn occurred. The aircraft plummeted rapidly, and air traffic…

In January of 2002, amidst the volatile rainy season of Indonesia, a Boeing 737 was caught in the heart of a ferocious storm. The turbulent flight became increasingly harrowing when the aircraft simultaneously lost both engines and its elec…

In the immediate aftermath of Christmas 2014, an Airbus A320 vanished over the Java Sea, bound for Singapore. A vast search operation confirmed the grim reality: the aircraft had crashed, claiming the lives of all 162 people aboard. Theorie…

April of 2013. A Boeing 747 cargo plane departed Afghanistan’s primary airbase, laden with 207,000 pounds of military supplies. Mere seconds after liftoff, the pilots found themselves battling loss of control. The aircraft refused to descen…