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The collapse of the walkways in a Kansas City Hotel, an LNG explosion in Ohio, the fatal effects of asbestos, the failure of the Yangtze River levees and the resulting floods, and a sinkhole near San Francisco all illustrate the need for better engineering practices.

From the crash of an El Al 747 into an Amsterdam Apartment buiding to the collapse of an Indiana road bridge due to inadequate support during construction, this episode explores 5 engineering disasters and the changes each one brought about.

A flourite tailings dam in the Italian Alps fails, sending a massive flood through the Val di Stava, destroying the towns of Tesoro and Stava, and costing 265 lives. The dam is found to have had defects in design and maintenance, with implications for other tailings dams worldwide.

A Birgenair 757 which was been idle at Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, for 3 weeks, is enlisted to replace an aircraft with mechanical trouble. It crashes shortly after takeoff, and few clues are left behind as to what caused the accident. The cockpit voice recorder and an analysis of why airspeed indicators were not working reliably lead to the cause of the accident: pitot tubes blocked by insects.

When methylisocyanate gas leaks from a tank at the Union Carbide Plant in Bhopal, India, hundreds die of the effects. The investigation implicates poor safety practices, worker fatigue, and company negligence as the cause. Union Carbide insists that the leak was the result of a disgruntled worker's sabotage.

The mysterious disappearance of an Air India 747 over the Atlantic Ocean present difficult problems for investigators because of the depth of the wreckage and difficulty in recovering evidence. The cause is eventually traced to a terrorist bomb, and, as a result, improvements were made in baggage security.

A German ICE train suffers the failure of a wheel and derails into a bridge at high speed near the town of Eschede, initiating a controversial investigation.

After flying into a major rain and hailstorm and losing both engines, a DC-9 crashes in New Hope, GA after the pilots attempt a landing on a highway. Investigation focuses on why the DC-9 engines, which were designed to survive water ingestion, would have failed and been impossible to restart.

A look at nuclear weapons development, the Cold War, and what present nuclear weapons exist.

An exceptional documentary on the 1979 meltdown at Three Mile Island, a nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, PA

A ten-year investigation into the mysterious but similar crashes of two 737 airliners and the near-crash of a third reveals the hidden danger responsible for all of the incidents --a fault in the design of a rudder control that, under certain situations, render the aircraft nearly impossible to control.

A flight from Argentina to Santiago, Chile disappears shortly before arrival at its destination. No distress signal was heard, but its last message was a mysterious word, repeated. No wreckage was discovered until many years later, when pieces of the vanished plane began to reappear, but not at the assumed crash site. This is a documentation of the invesigation of the cause of the mysterious crash.

The science of survival in natural disaster situations.

Why planes crash and new aviation methods to reduce the number of future crashes.

A look at the challenges facing trains at the places where they meet cars and trucks: the grade crossing.

A coal tip turned into slurry by water slides into a small Welsh village, burying a school, and causing the deaths of many of the village childen. The mining company claims that they were not aware of a spring underneath the tip; the village demands accountability.

A look at the "nuclear football," the briefcase that holds the materials needed by the President of the United States to initiate a nuclear attack, and the military aides responsible for keeping the "football" within reach of the President at all times.

After their plane crashed off-course in an uninhabited area of the Kalahari desert, the pilot and passengers must make difficult decisions in the struggle to survive.

A design flaw in the DC-10 aircraft dooms a Turkish Airlines flight outside of Paris, with over 300 deaths. A defect in the closing mechanism for the cargo door caused it to open in flight, depressurizing the plane and causing the crash. The defect had been discovered earlier in an American Airlines DC-10, which made an emergency landing in Detroit, but no airworthiness directive was issued, and lack of clear communication led to the fatal Turkish Airlines flight.

The Sydney-Hobart (Australia) boat race becomes a race for survival.

Amtrak's worst accident in its history takes place in Big Bayou Canot, near Mobile, AL., when the Sunset Limited derails from a bridge into the water, killing 44. The accident occurred after a towboat with barges struck the bridge and deformed the rails. The towboat's pilot became lost in the dense fog and left his intended course up the Mobile River.

An expert climber climbing Mt. Johnson in Alaska suffers a serious accident, forcing his partner and himself to face death again and again in an attempt to survive long enough to be rescued.