Final Boarding Call

On July 19, 1967, Piedmont Airlines Flight 22 collided in midair with a small Cessna over the mountains of North Carolina, killing everyone aboard both aircraft — directly above a children's summer camp at lunchtime. Join Alice and Zach as they trace how a confusing radio clearance, a controller working without radar, and a single misunderstood instruction lined up into catastrophe. Discover the safety technology this disaste...

On March 6, 2003, Air Algérie Flight 6289 crashed roughly thirty seconds after takeoff from Tamanrasset Airport in the Sahara Desert, killing 102 people. Discover how an engine failure—the kind of emergency pilots train for repeatedly—turned catastrophic through a series of critical mistakes in cockpit management and missed procedures. This episode explores the tragic consequences when standard safety protocols break do...

On May 15, 2001, an experienced freight engineer steps down from his locomotive in a rural Ohio rail yard to fix a misaligned switch. He's done this kind of work for thirty-five years, the train is creeping along at walking pace, and he'll be back on board in seconds. Then everything goes wrong. Join Alice and Zach for the story of CSX 8888 — a three-thousand-ton freight train carrying tank cars of toxic chemicals that runs l...

On December 1, 1993, Northwest Airlink Flight 5719 crashed three miles short of its destination in northern Minnesota, killing all 18 people aboard. The weather wasn't extreme. The aircraft wasn't broken. Both pilots were certified, qualified, and physically capable of flying the approach. But as the turboprop descended through the dark, something else was happening in the cockpit — something that wouldn't show up in the wrec...

What happens when a brand-new Boeing 737 flies into a hailstorm so violent that both engines die in the same instant, 16,500 feet above the Gulf Coast? Join Alice and Zach as they explore the 1988 emergency landing of TACA Flight 110, where a 29-year-old captain with one eye, a first officer he trusted, and a brand new aircraft were tested in a way no flight simulator had ever prepared a crew for. Discover how a near-miss nine mont...

On the night of July 18, 2018, a Malaysia Airlines Airbus A330 pushed back from Brisbane Airport carrying 215 passengers bound for Kuala Lumpur. Within seconds of takeoff, every airspeed display in the cockpit went red — and the crew had no idea how fast they were flying or why. Join Alice and Zach as they unravel a near-disaster that played out in the dark over the Queensland coast, the chain of small failures that put this ...

On a cold January morning in 1986, a launch that had been promoted as a celebration of science and education went catastrophically wrong in front of a watching nation. But the real story of this disaster didn't begin on the launch pad. It began six months earlier, in a memo an engineer wrote to his boss. It continued the night before, in a conference room in Utah, where that engineer laid photographs on a table and begged four men ...

On January 19, 1988, a twin-engine commuter plane descended through an overcast Colorado night toward a mountain valley and struck a ridge twelve miles from the runway at Durango. The pilots were experienced. The aircraft was functioning normally. Investigators found no mechanical failure of any kind. So what brought Trans-Colorado Airlines Flight 2286 down on a routine approach — and why did it take more than a year, a stran...

What happens when maintenance technicians reverse a single set of cables, turning a routine ferry flight into a two-hour battle for survival? Join Alice and Zach as they explore the harrowing story of Air Astana Flight 1388, where three pilots found themselves fighting an aircraft that did the exact opposite of what they commanded. With the plane flipping inverted, pulling crushing g-forces, and tearing itself apart in Portuguese s...

On March 21, 2022, a Boeing 737 carrying 132 people entered a near-vertical dive over southern China. Forty minutes into a routine one-hour flight, it was gone — no mayday call, no distress signal, no warning of any kind. But then something strange happened: for thirty seconds, the plane climbed back up. Join Alice and Zach as they piece together what the flight recorders revealed, what one government has refused to tell the ...

What happens when America's best-selling heavy-duty truck develops a flaw that can turn a routine highway drive into a fireball? Join Alice and Zach as they investigate a design defect that left Ram owners watching their six-figure trucks melt on the roadside—and the three-year gap between the first fires and corporate action. Discover how a 2019 engineering change created an invisible time bomb under the hood, learn about th...

What happens when a flock of birds turns an ordinary winter flight into a 208-second race against physics? Join Alice and Zach as they explore the incredible story of US Airways Flight 1549, where Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger made a split-second decision that saved 155 lives on a freezing January afternoon. But this isn't just a story about one heroic pilot—it's about the ferry captains who arrived in four minutes wit...

On September 11, 1974, Eastern Air Lines Flight 212 crashed three miles short of the runway in Charlotte, North Carolina, killing 72 people. The cause wasn't mechanical failure or bad weather — it was a conversation. Discover how cockpit distraction during a routine approach led to one of aviation's most preventable tragedies, and learn about the landmark safety rule that now governs every takeoff and landing worldwide. Among...

What happens when one of history's most celebrated aviators attempts to circumnavigate the globe and vanishes without a trace? Join Alice and Zach as they investigate the extraordinary life and mysterious disappearance of Amelia Earhart, a pioneering pilot who broke records, shattered glass ceilings, and captivated the world with her courage and determination. Discover how a woman who once avoided flying as a child became the first...

In the early 1990s, two Boeing 737s fall out of clear skies moments before landing. One in Colorado Springs. One outside Pittsburgh. In both cases, the crews are experienced professionals flying perfectly maintained aircraft. The engines are running normally at impact. The weather in Pittsburgh isn't even a factor. And the investigators who comb through both crash sites — the best aviation safety analysts in the world —...

On February 15, 2019, a routine JetBlue flight from San Juan to Fort Lauderdale gained an unexpected passenger when a mother went into labor at 30,000 feet. With no hospital, no surgical team, and no way to pull over, the crew and a handful of strangers became the only thing standing between a safe delivery and a medical catastrophe. Join Alice and Zach as they explore what happens when a baby decides to arrive six miles above the ...

On July 1, 2002, two aircraft collided at 36,000 feet over southern Germany, claiming 71 lives—including 45 Russian schoolchildren on what should have been the trip of a lifetime. Discover how a series of seemingly small mistakes—a short-staffed air traffic control center, malfunctioning equipment, and confusion over emergency protocols—created a perfect storm of disaster that could have been prevented at multiple...

Three people survived the Olympic collision in 1911, the Titanic sinking in 1912, and the Britannic disaster in 1916. Six months later, two of them were on the same ship when a German torpedo struck. One survived this fourth disaster. One didn't. The survivor was then rejected by every shipping line in Britain—not because he lacked skill, but because sailors refused to work with "the jinx." Discover the devastating true story...

On October 30, 2025, a JetBlue flight from Cancun suddenly dove without warning, slamming passengers into the cabin ceiling and hospitalizing 15 people. The pilots hadn't touched the controls. The plane was on autopilot. What investigators discovered wasn't pilot error or mechanical failure—it was something aviation engineers had never prepared for, a vulnerability hiding in plain sight that would trigger the largest emergenc...