
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.

Arrow Air Flight 1285 with 248 American soldiers on board crashes seconds after refueling in Newfoundland.

In 1978, PSA Flight 182 collides with a Cessna and crashes into a San Diego residential area, killing everyone on both planes and seven people on the ground.

Air Midwest Flight 5481 plummets to the ground just after takeoff, killing all on board and injuring one on the ground.

West Caribbean Airways Flight 708 crashes down killing 160 people in 2005; it leads to the bankruptcy of the troubled airline.