| Mayday | |
|---|---|
| Also known as | Air Crash Investigation; Air Emergency |
| Genre | Documentary |
| Created by | Cineflix |
| Narrated by | Stephen Bogaert (Canada, USA), Jonathan Aris (UK, Australia), Gaston Lepage (French-Canadian version) |
| Country of origin | Canada |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 6+ (sixth on Air) |
| No. of episodes | 60 (3 are Crash Scene Investigation episodes) (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Running time | 45–50 Minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | National Geographic Channel; Discovery Channel Canada |
| Original run | September 3, 2003 – present |
Mayday (also known as Air Emergency in the United States, Air Crash Investigation in the United Kingdom, Australia and other parts of the world, Mayday: Catástrofes aéreas in Spain and Spanish America and Mayday: Desastres aéreos in Brazil) is a documentary television program produced by Cineflix in Canada. It is aired on Discovery Channel Canada and the National Geographic Channel.
This documentary investigates many air crashes and near-crashes in modern history after the introduction of the black box flight recorders. It reveals events that led up to each disaster, the causes of the incidents and the measures recommended in the report by the NTSB or the investigating Commission to prevent a similar incident happening again. It features re-enactments, interviews, testimony, computer-generated imagery, and in some episodes, cockpit voice recordings to reconstruct the sequence of events to the audiences.
As of December 2008[update], six seasons of programs have been produced.
For season 4, the series received an updated title sequence and appearance.
Contents |
Name and versions
The program was originally produced in Canada under the name Mayday. However, viewers also refer to this series as Air Crash Investigations while National Geographic Channel does not officially use the final s. [1] There are small differences to the show as released to different regions. This includes the use of a British narrator, titling, and different theme music. In Australia the first season of the show was aired as Mayday whereas the following seasons were aired as Air Crash Investigation or, later, Air Crash Investigations.
Furthermore, this program, along with the similar series Blueprint for Disaster, for a time were typically billed together as Disaster Detectives on Discovery Channel Canada. It consisted of a short 10-second clip of various scenes aired before the show.
Episodes and format
Several passengers and crew members (whether they survived the incident or not) are picked and actors/actresses play the role of those passengers and crews throughout the flight usually starting from boarding of the flight. The flight routines in the air traffic control, cockpit and cabin are recreated on screen starting from departure up to the moment of the emergency. At the moment of the emergency, external view of the aircraft from different angles are recreated to show the effect and what had happened to the aircraft. The responses and reactions of the passengers, crews and air traffic control leading up to the eventual crash or emergency landing are then recreated. All the scenes in cockpit and air traffic control centres are recreated using the actual script obtained from the cockpit voice recorder of the aircraft.
The rescue and recovery effort and the investigations process is then recreated in detail, showing how the aircraft parts, the flight data recorders and cockpit voice recorders are recovered and examined, how the pieces are related together to maintenance records, initial design, training procedures, etc. to draw the final conclusion.
Surviving passengers and crews or relatives and friends of deceased passengers are interviewed throughout each episode. Investigators, from NTSB in most cases, involved in the subsequent investigations are interviewed to explain the flow of the investigations and how the conclusion and subsequent recommendations are made. Each episode usually ends with a short interview with one of the survivors (or a relative of a deceased) to summarize their experiences and how they feel, and how lessons learned from the accident have affected aviation today.
The new episodes in Crash in the Hudson River (US Airways Flight 1549) and Concorde (Air France Flight 4590)
Broadcasters
NOTE: List of networks may not be up to date.
DVD release
- Mayday (All 6 Episodes from Season 1: “Unlocking Disaster”, “Racing the Storm”, “Fire on Board”, “Flying Blind”, “Cutting Corners”, and “Flying on Empty”) (Released on April 7, 2009)
See also
- List of National Geographic Channel programs
- List of Mayday episodes
- Seconds From Disaster
- Seismic Seconds
- Blueprint for Disaster
External links
- National Geographic Channels International
- Air Crash Investigation on National Geographic Channel
- Mayday at the Internet Movie Database
- Cineflix Website
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