
Statistically, traveling by airplane is safer than driving and other forms of transportation, but when something goes wrong during a flight, it can be catastrophic with potentially hundreds of lives at stake. This series examines some of the world's worst air disasters, using official reports, transcripts and interviews with people involved to tell the stories of midair mishaps and discover what went wrong in each case. Episodes include a discussion of how the weather affects flights -- including stories of aviation disasters and near-misses -- and a New Year's Eve flight that fell from the sky into the Florida Everglades.

Three flights ending in tragedy, prove that minor missteps during takeoff can have disastrous consequences.

Investigators struggle to determine why a 757 strayed off course during its final approach to a Colombia airport and crashed into a mountain.

A look at the commercial flights that ended in disaster because of suspected murder-suicide.

When John F. Kennedy Jr.'s Piper Saratoga crashed in 1999, the NTSB faces big pressure to find the wreckage and the cause.