TV Guide Smithsonian Monday

Indonesian investigators work to understand why one of the world's best-selling new airplanes fell into the Java Sea.

Members from the Brazilian Air Force team up with the National Transportation Safety Board to determine what caused a plane to crash seconds after takeoff.

DC-10 Martinair Flight 495 is on final approach when it crashes, tears apart and slides off the runway amidst thunderstorms and heavy rain.

U.S. Air Force pilots abort their refueling mission and try to land their plane after they lose two engines near enemy territory.

An Air Kazakhstan flight over India failed to maintain the altitude assigned to it and collided with a Boeing 747, killing all 349 people on both planes.

In 2013, a flight from South Korea approaches the runway at San Francisco but comes in too low, striking the seawall and breaking off the tail section.

More than 200 people on board Korean Air Flight 801 are killed after it crashes on a hill just five kilometers short of its destination.

A Turkish Airlines flight crashed when its radio altimeter failed and the computer controlling the autothrottle lowered its engines to idle speed.

After a commercial spacecraft explodes, the National Transportation Safety Board investigates what caused the accident and how to prevent it.

A freight train exceeds its weight limit, barrels out of control down a San Bernadino mountainside and careens into a hamlet below.

Five minutes into an Ethiopian Airlines flight, the pilots lose control and the plane plummets into the sea; the cause became a subject of controversy.

A Lockheed L-1011 slips out of autopilot mode unnoticed as its crew tries to determine if its nose wheel is working properly so that they can land safely.

On November 14, 1990, Alitalia Flight 404, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32, crashed into the woodlands of Weiach in Zurich, while on a flight from Milan to Zurich.

A look at how tension in the cockpit and human flaws caused the crash of British Trident in 1972, a doomed Colorado flight and the crash of a commuter plane.

A Venezuelan flight from Merida to Caracas crashes into a mountain at 14,000 feet; investigators said that the crash was caused by faulty equipment.

Garuda Indonesia Flight 152 crashed into a ravine in the mountainous woodlands while on final approach to Medan Polonia International Airport in Indonesia.

A McDonnell-Douglas DC-10's engine explodes in mid-air and destroys its hydraulic control system, but the pilots save more than half the people on board.

Experts investigate how two planes can find themselves on the same runway at the same time by examining three runway collisions.

Examining the most important battles of the European theatre from 1939 and the Blitzkrieg attack on Poland to the Battle for Berlin in 1945.

Germany launched Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941 on the Soviet Union with the intent to wipe out the Red Army and slaughter the population.

Battlefield footage of El Alamein, the battle that will determine the outcome of North Africa.

Russian T-34 tanks face off against Germany's Tigers in the greatest tank battle of the world in the Russian town of Kursk.

Color footage shows the US military's bloodiest battle on the European front in World War II.

Historians present the epic battles and power struggles of World War II through archival footage in color.

A review of several notable crashes reveals that they were caused by mechanical problems, ranging from mistakes in maintenance and repairs to design flaws.

Investigators discover critical weaknesses in the operations necessary for aircraft to avoid flying into mountains after three terrifying crashes.

A chartered plane carrying the Brazilian Chapecoense soccer team, crashed on their way from Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, to Medellin, Colombia in 2016.

An examination of the changes that occur in the aviation industry when civilian airliners crash as investigators try to determine the catalyst of the disaster.

On September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 77 was hijacked by five men with Al-Qaeda, and deliberately crashed into the West wall of the Pentagon.

In August 2005, a domestic flight in Peru encounters torrential rain at Pucallpa, its scheduled destination, but the pilots initiate approach anyway.