Mayday - Season 5 - Eps 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.
About Mayday
Title: Mayday
First Air Date: 2003-09-03
Last Air Date: 2025-03-23
Status: Returning Series
Rating: 8.2/10 (from 260 votes)
Language: EN
Seasons: 26
Total Episodes: 229
Network: 5 Discovery Sky History National Geographic Channel National Geographic
Genres: Documentary, Drama, Crime
Production Companies: Cineflix Productions, World Media Rights
Synopsis
Major real-life air disasters are depicted in this series. Each episode features a detailed dramatized reconstruction of the incident based on cockpit voice recorders and air traffic control transcripts, as well as eyewitnesses recounts and interviews with aviation experts.
Cast
Stephen Bogaert
Narrator (voice)
Jonathan Aris
Narrator (Nat Geo)
