aviation accident

A short documentary about the 1980 Lake Peigneur accident in Louisiana, where an oil rig drilled into a salt mine beneath the lake. The lake drained into the mine, creating a whirlpool that swallowed barges.

A long documentary-style film on the 1961 SL-1 reactor accident, where a control rod was withdrawn too far and the reactor went prompt-critical. The resulting steam explosion ejected control rods and shield plugs.

Cockpit footage of an approach to the Megeve altiport in France that ends in a gear-up landing, with the warning horn audible throughout. Everyone aboard survived and the crew had thousands of flight hours.

A Wendover Productions explainer on the political agreements, from the Chicago Convention onward, that determine which airlines can fly where. It lays out the five freedoms of the air.

Real air traffic control audio of the Air Astana flight whose flight controls had been wired in reverse by a maintenance error. The pilots struggle to keep control while ATC tries to help.

Kurzgesagt compares how many people nuclear accidents have killed against other energy sources. It walks through the worst nuclear accidents and puts their death tolls in context per unit of energy.

AVweb's Paul Bertorelli explains why general aviation has failed to replace leaded avgas, blaming industry inertia, bureaucratic delay and an exemption that removes the incentive. This is part one of two.

A Movieclips excerpt from the 1989 film Fat Man and Little Boy in which John Cusack's character assembles a bomb core and a criticality accident occurs. It is a film dramatization of a real Manhattan Project accident.

Real Engineering analyzes whether electric planes are feasible, focusing on battery energy density limits compared with jet fuel. It concludes electric flight works mainly for short ranges.

AVweb's Paul Bertorelli explains in part two of a series why general aviation has not replaced leaded avgas. He covers industry inertia, bureaucratic delays and the exemption that lets the industry keep using lead.

An episode of the Well There's Your Problem podcast on the 1987 Goiania radiological accident in Brazil, based largely on the IAEA report. It goes through the event day by day.

The US Chemical Safety Board's updated animation of the 2005 BP Texas City refinery explosion, which killed 15 workers. It was released ahead of a process safety training application.

AVweb's flight trial of Garmin's Emergency Autoland system, which flies a plane to a runway and lands it when the pilot cannot. It is part of Garmin's Autonomi automation on the G3000 avionics.

Footage of Boeing test pilot Tex Johnson barrel-rolling the Boeing 707 prototype over Lake Washington, followed by his explanation of the stunt.

Mentour Pilot's 56-minute account of the MH370 disappearance and what is now known, including the WSPR radio tracking technique and other sensing methods. It was made ahead of renewed search efforts.

A woodworker shows how his table saw accident happened, why it happened and how to avoid a similar one. He describes severe hand lacerations from a blade contact.

AVweb's Paul Bertorelli analyzes the safety record of the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS), looking at the 90-plus deployments over 20 years of Cirrus flying. He asks whether the whole-aircraft parachute has actually saved lives.

Short archival footage of a USMC KC-130F Hercules making unarrested landings and takeoffs on the USS Forrestal in 1963. It is the largest and heaviest aircraft to have landed on a carrier, and the tests were judged successful but too risky for routine use.

Lawyer and musician Damien Riehl argues that music is math with a finite number of melodies, and describes how he and programmer Noah Rubin generated every possible melody and released them under CC0 to avoid accidental infringement claims.

Air traffic audio of a pilot slurring and incoherent while declaring an emergency due to extreme hypoxia, with controllers at Cleveland Center struggling to understand him.

Amateur footage from 2014 of small airplanes being lifted and blown around during a microburst. It is a three-minute clip showing how violent the gusts can be.

Cockpit camera footage of a jet hitting a bird after takeoff, losing its engine and the crew ejecting. Commenters note it is actually a Canadian CT-155 Hawk despite the F16 title.

Cockpit footage of a Swiss Airbus A340 crew dealing with rising oil temperature in one engine on a Zurich to Shanghai flight, ending with a safety landing. It shows the pilots' procedures through the emergency.

Archival footage of Boeing test pilot Tex Johnston barrel-rolling the 707 prototype, the Dash-80, over Lake Washington in 1955 during a demonstration.

Declassified HUD footage of an F-16 whose unconscious pilot is saved by the Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System. It shows the aircraft pulling out of a dive on its own.

Veritasium tells the story of Thomas Midgley Jr., who introduced leaded gasoline and CFCs, and covers the science behind lead exposure and ozone damage. It also touches on isotope geochemistry used to uncover the history.

A Last Week Tonight segment on the US nuclear arsenal and how poorly it is maintained and secured. It covers weapons accidents, outdated launch protocols and security problems.

Wendover Productions explains why modern airliners fly no faster than they did decades ago, covering the economics of speed and fuel efficiency, and why supersonic travel faded.

A DEF CON 20 talk by RenderMan on the security weaknesses of ADS-B, the unencrypted, unauthenticated aircraft tracking broadcast. It shows how easily the data can be spoofed and what that means for security designed in too late.

MIT 22.01 lecture by Michael Short explaining the Chernobyl accident technically, including RBMK reactor positive feedback, xenon poisoning and the cascade of human errors during the test.

Retired Major Brian Shul tells the story of a ground speed check with LA Center while flying the SR-71 Blackbird. He recounts it live at the Hiller Aviation Museum.

Part one of an American Airlines training video presented by Captain Warren VanderBurgh on automation dependency. It grew out of a program on wake turbulence avoidance, and this restored version has the audio cleaned up.

CGP Grey explains why airport codes are inconsistent and sometimes confusing, from their origins in old weather station codes to the quirks that cause mistakes. He builds the story around a single typo that sent a flight to the wrong continent.

An Engineering Giants documentary episode following a British Airways Boeing 747-400 through a D-check, the heaviest maintenance inspection, in Cardiff. The aircraft is stripped down and inspected nearly everywhere.

Coffeezilla reacts to Sam Bankman-Fried's explanation of yield farming on the Odd Lots podcast, arguing he effectively described a Ponzi scheme. The video was made well before FTX collapsed.

An American Airlines training video by Captain Warren VanderBurgh on control malfunctions and flight instrument anomalies. It discusses real incidents such as runaway trim and instrument failures and how crews should respond.

Footage of an Airbus A380 engine blade-off test, in which a fan blade is deliberately released at full thrust to show the engine contains the failure.

A classic Clarke and Dawe sketch from 1991 in which an Australian senator evasively discusses an oil spill, famously saying the front fell off.

Short footage from a NASA space suit test in which a technician is exposed to near-vacuum after an accidental depressurization. It shows the instantaneous effects on a human body.

A Tesla Model S/X owner films his drive on US-101 in the lane where a fatal Model X Autopilot crash occurred, showing the car steering toward the lane divider without any warning.