Air Crash Investigation season 13

On 18 June 1972, British European Airways Flight 548 stalls and crashes in a field near Staines shortly after takeoff from London Heathrow Airport, killing all 118 people on board. The crash was attributed to the pilot retracting the aircraft's droops at too low an airspeed and failing to recognise the stall warnings.

On 6 June 1971, Hughes Airwest Flight 706 collides with a United States Marine Corps (USMC) fighter jet above the San Gabriel Mountains. A total of 50 people from the two aircraft are killed, with the backseat crewman of the USMC aircraft the only survivor.

On 10 January 2000, Crossair Flight 498 crashes just two minutes after takeoff from Zürich, Switzerland, while heading for Dresden, Germany, killing all 10 people on board. The investigation found that the pilots had suffered spatial disorientation.

On 13 January 1982, Air Florida Flight 90 stalls at 300 feet altitude, strikes a road bridge and crashes into the Potomac River, killing 78 people. The causes were ice on the wings and the pilots' failure to turn on the engines' anti-freeze system, causing erroneous engine instrument readings.

On 12 November 2001, just two months after the September 11 attacks, American Airlines Flight 587 spirals out of control shortly after taking off from John F. Kennedy Airport and crashes into Queens, killing all 260 people on board and five people on the ground. It was later determined that aggressive rudder use by the first officer in response to wake turbulence from a Boeing 747-400 that had taken off minutes earlier had caused the vertical stabilizer to detach from the aircraft.

On 15 September 1989, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration aircraft tasked with intercepting Hurricane Hugo over the Caribbean islands is jolted by strong winds, causing an engine to catch fire and fail. The pilots of the aircraft manage to make a safe emergency landing.

On 27 June 1980, Aerolinee Itavia Flight 870 crashes into the Tyrrhenian Sea near the island of Ustica, Italy. All 81 people on board are killed. The top Italian criminal court eventually ruled on 23 January 2013 that a missile strike brought down the aircraft,^[3] but controversy remains; some experts dispute this conclusion, arguing that an on-board bomb in the rear toilet was the cause. No definitive accident report was published.

On 27 November 2008, an aircraft on a post-maintenance test flight operating as XL Airways Germany Flight 888T stalls and crashes into the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of France, killing all seven people on board. Improper maintenance work allowed water to enter the aircraft's angle of attack (AOA) sensors; the water then froze during flight, and the sensors stopped working. When the crew tried to test the stall warning system during flight, the aircraft stalled.

On 9 August 2007, Air Moorea Flight 1121 crashes shortly after taking off from Moorea Airport in French Polynesia, killing all 19 passengers and the pilot. A badly worn elevator control cable had failed completely in flight. As the force on the elevators changes with flap retraction, the cable broke after being overloaded. The situation was aggravated by the aircraft being repeatedly buffeted by jet blast from larger aircraft while parked, stressing the cables further.

On 4 November 2010, shortly after takeoff from Singapore, the number-two engine on Qantas Flight 32 partially disintegrates, causing serious damage to its left wing. The crew members overcome a number of resulting failures and make a safe emergency landing back at Singapore with no injuries among the 469 passengers and crew members. Investigators traced the engine failure to a manufacturing fault in an oil pipe.

Note: This is the 100th aircraft case investigated on Mayday.

This special looked at how people survive aviation accidents, in part with demonstrations at the Czech Airlines Training Centre.