TV Guide Smithsonian Monday

With flames emerging through the cockpit floor, the pilots of Pilgrim Airlines flight 458 manage a heroic landing on a frozen Rhode Island reservoir.

At Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, the pilots of Delta Flight 191 fly through an isolated thunderstorm and encounter rapidly shifting downdrafts.

As a commuter plane leaves Atlanta one of its propellers breaks and strikes the engine nacelle, causing the wing to lose its lift, and the plane sinks rapidly.

After a commuter flight crashes a mile away from the Missouri runway where it was supposed to land, investigators look into the final seconds in the cockpit.

The toilet of an Air Canada DC-9 catches on fire, and as the plane makes an emergency landing in Cincinnati, a flashover causes the cabin to burst into flames.

Facing poor visibility, a cargo flight is on final approach to an Alabama airport when it hits a grove of trees and crashes.

In 1986, 80 passengers die when two planes collide in midair and crash into a Los Angeles neighborhood, and experts explain the cause of the accident.

A Boeing 737 leaving Manaus, Brazil collides with an Embraer business jet over the Amazon rainforest, and investigators disagree about the accident's causes.

A review of air disasters caused by explosive decompression or pressurization failure reveals problems ranging from design flaws to maintenance mistakes.

On January 9, 1997, Comair Flight 3272 spiraled out of control and crashed nose-first while on approach to Detroit Metropolitan Airport, killing 29 passengers.

Atlantic Airways Flight 670 unexpectedly sways off of the runway and down an embankment on Stord, the miniature Norwegian island.

When a massive explosion tears a hole in United Airlines Flight 811 over Hawaii, the search for answers ultimately leads to a deadly short circuit.

A 737 aircraft crashes on a Caribbean island just before it makes it to the runway, but investigatorsbelieve that the crash may not have been an accident.

In 1988 a brand-new Airbus A320 became the first of its model to crash after it hit the treetops just beyond the runway during a flyby at an air show.

The 1985 explosion of an Air India jet flying out of Montreal was attributed to a bomb planted by agents of two radical Sikh organizations working together.

In 1956 two commercial airliners are found in pieces on the floor of the Grand Canyon; the experts' conclusions change every air voyage that follows.

When TAROM Flight 371 crashes after taking off from Bucharest, Romania, on March 31, 1995, investigators must determine if it was an accident or murder.

Investigators search the wreckage of an MD-90, which suffered a sudden explosion upon landing in Hualien, Taiwan, to uncover the cause of the tragedy.

In 1972 a McDonnell-Douglas DC-10 flying from Detroit to Buffalo, N.Y. loses a cargo door and decompresses; two years later another DC-10 has the same problem.

A calculation error leaves the crew of a freight train unaware of its true weight and leads them to underestimate the amount of braking force it needs.

On February 4, 2015, TransAsia Airways Flight 235 crashes into the Keelung River in Taiwan shortly after taking off from Taipei Songshan Airport.

A Boeing 737 is rocked by a midair explosion that challenges its pilots and nearly ejects a passenger out of a blown-out window.

With flames emerging through the cockpit floor, the pilots of Pilgrim Airlines flight 458 manage a heroic landing on a frozen Rhode Island reservoir.

Flight 1862 going from Amsterdam to Tel Aviv is involved in a catastrophic collision; investigators try to uncover a lethal problem on every 747 aircraft.

An improperly set cabin pressurization control on a 2005 Helios Airways flight causes passengers and crew to run out of oxygen, rendering them unconscious.

Trans-Air Service Flight 671 suffers an in-flight separation of its two right engines while enroute to Kano, Nigeria, and making an emergency landing.

At the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo, investigators search for an invisible culprit after a cargo plane crashes just a few thousand feet from the Cuban border.

Facing a cascade of failures and an engine fire, a turboprop is just seconds from the tarmac in Montreal when it flips over and crashes to the ground.

On July23, 2014, TransAsia Airways Flight 222, crashed into buildings while on approach from Kaohsiung to Magong Airport on Penghu Island in the Taiwan Strait.

Three out of balance planes confirm the need for critical backup systems.