Seconds From Disaster
Seconds from Disaster is a US/UK-produced documentary television programme that investigates historically relevant man-made and natural disasters of the 20th century. Each episode aims to explain a single incidental by analyzing the causes and circumstances that ultimately effected the disaster. The program uses re-enactments, interviews, testimonies, and CGI to analyze the sequence of events second-by-second for the audience. Narrators for the show are Ashton Smith, Richard Vaughan and Peter Guinness.
Type: tv
Season: 1
Episode: 1
Duration: 45m
Release: 2005
Rating: 7.2
Season 1 - Seconds From Disaster
10 Aug 2004
"When a boat in southern Alabama gets lost and bumps into a small bridge, a Amtrak train going at high speed derails into a small canal outside of Mobile."
17 Aug 2004
"An explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant kills 56 people while the health of thousands more continue to be affected."
24 Aug 2004
"Days after residents of Guadalajara complained of a foul smell, a series of gasoline-fueled explosions in the sewers kills 206 people."
31 Aug 2004
"In Kaprun, Austria, a mountain train to bring skiers up the mountain erupts in fire as it passes through a tunnel. 155 people die. The cause is an electric heater that catches fire and ignites hydraulic fluid dripping from a leaky line."
19 Oct 2004
"On Tenerife, a Pan Am flight taxied on the runway, while a KLM flight took off. But miscommunication caused one of the worst aviation disasters when the two jumbo jets collided, killing 583..."
Season 2 - Seconds From Disaster
12 Jul 2005
"After severe engine trouble on a new Boeing 737-400, pilots shut down the wrong engine and crash just 900 m away from the runway on a motorway embankment."
26 Jul 2005
"In 1980 Mount St. Helens erupted sideways instead of the expected upwards and caused large devastation and killed 57 people."
N/A
"On July 19, 1989, a United Airlines DC-10 experienced a catastrophic failure of the titanium fan disk in its tail engine, resulting in fluid loss in its three hydraulic systems and thereby becoming uncontrollable."
15 Nov 2005
"On May 6, 1937 the Hindenburg was completely destroyed while attempting to land at Lakehurst, NY, in stormy weather. It is concluded that sharp turns caused straps to snap rupturing hydrogen tanks that were ignited by static electricity."
Season 3 - Seconds From Disaster
10 Jan 2006
"A recreation of the Hyatt Regency walkway collapse, the deadliest structural failure in US history before 9\/11."
N/A
"A carelessly discarded match caused the worst fire in London Underground's history, killing 31 people. How did this small fire erupt into a deadly fireball?"
11 Jul 2006
"A plane takes off for Atlanta from Miami and explodes just seconds from take off. The Valujet crashes into the Florida Everglades with no survivors. A senseless tragedy that could have been avoided."
25 Jul 2006
"An investigation inti the cause of the sinking of Titanic. The ultimate cause was the use of post-war rivets that showed flaws in the metal and were unable to withstand the massive strain of the collision with the iceberg."
15 Aug 2006
"An accidental release of an old missile on the flight deck of the USS Forestal starts a huge fire and subsequent explosions kill a total of 134 soldiers and injure another 161. The accident came close to sinking the Forestal."
06 Sep 2006
"On November 12, 2001 an American Airlines Airbus crashed in Queens. The investigation showed that the tailfin was sheared off following fierce rudder corrections by the co-pilot."
20 Sep 2006
"A large department store collapses in Seoul, South Korea killing 502 people and injuring another 937. Safety margins were ignored during construction and several people were jailed for corruption and criminal negligence."
Season 4 - Seconds From Disaster
09 Sep 2011
"Remembering 9\/11 and reconstructing the moments before the catastrophe. Showing new evidence and knowledge in the moments leading to the events of 9\/11."
26 Sep 2011
"For the forty-five schoolchildren who boarded the Bashkirian Airlines flight from Moscow to Barcelona it was going to be the trip of a lifetime - a reward for their academic success. But ..."
10 Oct 2011
"December 3rd 1984. Evening descends on Bhopal, a bustling Indian city of nearly 1 million people, many factory workers living in the slums surrounding the city. As they cook, eat and ..."
Season 5 - Seconds From Disaster
25 Mar 2012
"In 1960 construction of Europe's tallest dam is completed in the Vajont Valley in Northern Italy - the jewel in the crown of an ambitious hydro-electric generation scheme. But as the new ..."
15 Apr 2012
"The Deepwater Horizon rig has finished drilling the Macondo Well for BP in the Gulf of Mexico. The well, in water 1500m deep, extends to a depth of 4000m. The crew test the well to ensure ..."
Season 6 - Seconds From Disaster
N/A
"Seconds from Disaster reveals how a charismatic church leader from San Francisco, was able to lead over 900 US citizens to their deaths, in what became one of the most famous cases of mass suicide in world history."
19 Nov 2012
"Seconds from Disaster reveals how a US mission in Somalia quickly turns from a raid to a search and rescue mention leaving 18 American soldiers are dead and another 73 are injured."
03 Dec 2012
"Seconds from Disaster reveals the contributing factors that contributed to the deadliest single-aircraft accident in history."
22 Jul 2012
"On July 22, 2011, lone gunman Anders Behring Breivik emerges from a western Norwegian suburb to commit one of the worst terrorist atrocities in Europe since World War II. The massacre ..."
