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: 2025-05-26
Status: Returning Series
Rating: 8.2/10 (from 267 votes)
Language: EN
Seasons: 26
Total Episodes: 230
Network: 5 Discovery Sky History National Geographic Channel National Geographic
Genres: Documentary, Drama, Crime
Production Companies: Cineflix Productions
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
Self - Narrator (voice)
