What Went Wrong: Countdown to Catastrophe Season 2 Episodes
Season 2 Episode Guide
Episode 7 - The Ramstein TragedyTHE RAMSTEIN-TRAGEDY - 28 AUGUST 1988 Seventy fatalities and over three hundred injuries are the sad record of the worst aviation related disasters of all time. An Italian air force display team were asked to perform the grand finale of the show at the US Air Force base in Ramstein with its figure “Pierced Heart”. But soloist Ivo Nutarelli makes a fatal mistake. He mistimed his altidude and touches the cockpit of another pilot. The plane crashes onto the runway. Nutarelli collides with another plane. The two planes crash directly into the crowd, one explodes. The rescue operations are chaotic, the US Army and civilian German aid organizations act in opposition, some rescue vehicles are not allowed on the ground. As a consequence of the accident, maneuvers over spectators were generally prohibited.
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Episode 8 - Viareggio Derailment DisasterTHE VIAREGGIO DERAILMENT DISASTER – 29 JUNE 2009 On June 29, 2009, an explosive train accident occurred in Viareggio, in northwest Italy, with catastrophic consequences. At 23:48 a.m. a train with 14 loaded gas containers crossed the famous coastal town. Suddenly something breaks. The first tank truck directly behind the locomotive detaches from the rails. It tips over to the side. In the process, it pulls four more tankers with it. The tanks are damaged and the liquid gas leaks out. Ninety-six seconds later, the tank truck explodes. The train drivers rescue themselves behind a wall just in time. The huge explosion leads to several fires that spread through the station to the neighboring district. The fire department tries to contain the fire. Nevertheless, 34 people died and several others were seriously injured. Two houses collapsed and large parts of the city were damaged. Later investigations identify the trigger for the catastrophe: a small damage to the front axle. A defect that should have been noticed during the last maintenance. Once again, human error led to a deadly tragedy. The process began on November 13, 2013. The charges included causing a railroad accident and multiple negligent homicides. Senior employees of the Italian railroad system and of the US company that hired the tankers were found guilty and are awaiting the final verdict.
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Episode 9 - Flight MH17THE SHOOT DOWN OF THE FLIGHT MH17 – 17 JULY 2014 Just weeks after the mysterious loss of fligh MH370, Malaysian airlines suffered another catastrophic blow: the flight MH17, from Amsterdam to Kualalumpur. It is still unclear who is responsible for the crash of the passenger plane. Over the five years since the disaster, the Russian state and para state communications machine have denied that the missile was fired by Russian backed rebels, or indeed that it had come from Russia at all. International studies claim that pieces of debris suggest a Russian system. Malaysia has said that the findings do not clearly show Russian involvement, while the Russians point at Ukrainian anti aircraft units as the culprits. Episode 2 summarizes and discusses all findings.
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Episode 10 - The Blaze in the Mont Blanc TunnelMONT BLANC TUNNEL – 24 MARCH 1999 The Mont Blanc tunnel was considered one of the world’s engineering marvels, it was considered one of the safest, until on the 24th of March 1999 something went horribly wrong. When a truck driver transporting margarine and flour to an Italian food company saw smoke billowing from under the cabin of his truck, he stopped and fled. The burning truck blocked the tunnel and created a tail back. The smoke detectors had been turned off after a false alarm the previous day so response was too late. The drivers in the cars and tricks blocked in the tunnel had no idea what was going on until thick black smoke began approaching them fast. The ventilation system failed, about 40 additional vehicles caught fire, the temperature reached more than 1000°C. The firemen couldn’t reach the fire, people headed for the fire safety chambers but they weren’t designed to withstand fire of this size. 39 people died, including rescue teams. The fire-fighting operation lasted 50 hours.
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Episode 11 - Duisburg Love Parade DisasterTHE DUISBURG LOVE PARADE DISASTER – 24 JULY 2010 The July 24th 2010 disaster at the Duisburg Love Parade changed the way crowds are handled for ever. The festival was a free entry event usually held in Berlin with around 1-1.5 million visitors. In 2010, the celebration was to take place in Duisburg in a former freight station with a capacity of 250,000 people. The only access points to the closed space were a series of tunnels. After admission had already been delayed for an hour, mass panic ensued, costing the lives of 21 people. In several trials it was tried who was responsible for the disaster.
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Episode 12 - The Explosion Disaster in BeirutBEIRUT PORT EXPLOSION When firemen were called to Beirut port at nearly 6 p.m. to put out a fire that had started in one of the warehouses, they heard a strange crackling sound. Little did they expect what happened next. A massive explosion, later estimated at the equivalent of 1.1 kilotons of TNT (the Hiroshima atom bomb was 15KT). The shock wave devastated the city around the port. One hundred and ninety people died, over 6000 were injured and three hundred thousand were left homeless out of a population of 2 million. St George‘s hospital was so devastated that the doctors were forced to treat the injured in the street and closed several days later. Sixteen ships in the port sank and the disaster came after a year of torment with a collapsing economy and the COVID 19 health crisis.
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