Mayday
Season 5 Episode 2 - Behind Closed Doors (American Airlines Flight 96 and Turkish Airlines Flight 981)
On 12 June 1972, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10, just a few months old, operating as American Airlines Flight 96 from Detroit, Michigan, to Buffalo, New York, suffers an explosive decompression after a cargo door in the lower rear fuselage bursts open. The crew makes an emergency landing at Detroit without any loss of life. Two years later, on 3 March 1974, Turkish Airlines Flight 981 suffers a similar sequence of events during a flight from Paris to London. This time, the DC-10's hydraulic systems are damaged enough that the crew loses control, and the aircraft crashes in a forest near Senlis outside Paris, killing all 346 on board. At the time, it was the worst aviation disaster in history. A design fault with the cargo door mechanism was not rectified after the first accident, and the second DC-10's door opened during flight, causing the crash.
Episodes in Season 5
Explosive Evidence (Air India Flight 182)
45 min
Behind Closed Doors (American Airlines Flight 96 and Turkish Airlines Flight 981)
45 min
Southern Storm (Southern Airways Flight 242)
45 min
Dead Weight (Air Midwest Flight 5481)
45 min
Invisible Killer (Delta Air Lines Flight 191)
45 min
Gimli Glider (Air Canada Flight 143)
45 min
Fanning the Flames (South African Airways Flight 295)
45 min
Fatal Distraction (Eastern Airlines Flight 401)
45 min
Mixed Signals (Birgenair Flight 301)
45 min
Phantom Strike (Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907)
45 min
