
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.

Moments before Pacific Southwest Flight 1771 crashes on a cattle ranch in California, gunshots are heard in the cabin.

In September 2006, a brand-new legacy business jet collides with a Boeing 737 over the Amazon forest.

When a twin-engine jet careens off the runway in Kentucky, investigators must determine why the plane failed to take off.

Design innovations evolve as a result of terrible air disasters due to pressurization failure or explosive decompression.