Deadly Engineering

The disaster of Air France Flight 447 (an Airbus A330) and the crash of NASA's Skylab (the first US space station) in 1979 are catastrophes of aviation with a mysterious legacy; experts investigate these historic tragedies to determine what caused these monumental failures of flight.

When London's Grenfell Tower caught fire in 2017, its hundreds of residents must escape a deadly inferno; expert engineers investigate and reveal how the building's engineering caused the disaster to escalate tragically. Also investigated is the collapse of a pedestrian bridge in 2018 at Florida International University in Miami.

The nuclear meltdown of Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania (1979) and the deadly hydroelectric turbine tragedy at the Sayano-Shushenskaya Dam in Russia (2009) were power plant disasters of an unprecedented scale; experts examine the aftermath of these fatal catastrophes and explore their lasting consequences.

The largest earthquake (magnitude 9.0) in the history of Japan during 2011 and a resulting 46-foot tsunami led to one of the most catastrophic nuclear disasters in history at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant; expert scientists and engineers investigate and reveal how flawed operational procedures escalated the tragedy. Also reviewed is the 2011 high-speed train collision in Wenzhou, China.

Haiti's 2010 earthquake (magnitude 7.0) was one of the world's most deadly natural disasters that left much of the island nation in ruins; experts investigate and reveal how a lack of construction safety measures resulted in such catastrophic destruction. Also covered is the 2019 collapse of the Hard Rock Hotel being built in New Orleans, Louisiana.