History Channel: Mega Disasters - Deadly Jet Collision

Mega Disasters: Deadly Jet Collision

Since commercial aviation truly began in the 1930s, the romance of air travel has been marred by the tragedy of crashes. Today, the sky above is safer than ever before but the ground below has become more perilous. That was tragically proven in March, 1977, on the island of Tenerife part of the Canary Island chain where 583 people were killed when two Boeing 747s collided at Los Rodeos Airport. It was the worlds and histories - worst aviation disaster. Though decades have passed, root causes for the tragedy at Tenerife remain with us today. It could happen again. But, with next-generation airliners, able to carry more passengers than ever before, a similar collision now would dwarf the death toll at Tenerife. The problem is runway incursions, meaning any incorrect presence of aircraft, vehicles or persons on an airfield. For the last decade, the U.S. has seen roughly 300 incursions per year. Most are not serious, but some have been very near misses and others have taken lives. On February 1, 1991, at Los Angeles International Airport, a controller cleared a Boeing 737 to land on a runway where a small commuter plane had already been ordered to hold. The two planes collided both were destroyed and 34 people lost their lives. Serious efforts are being made to mitigate incursions but with air traffic expected to double or triple by 2020, we could be heading toward a perfect storm for a cataclysmic crash. The scenario is not hard to imagine. Sometime in the next decade, a hypothetical flight from Denver has just landed at a busy American airport. As it taxis toward the terminal, the pilot makes a wrong turn and heads toward an active runway where a next generation airliner, bound for New York, has just been cleared for takeoff. The Captain throttles up engines and hurtles down the runway just as the Denver flight enters its path. Seconds ahead, over a thousand people will die in the flames of burning jet fuel. Unless significant changes continue to b

File Size ------- 348mb
Length ---------- 44:55
Resolution ------ 720x432
Container ------- avi
Video Codec ----- h264
Audio Codec ----- mp3
Frame Rate ------ 24

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