Plane Crash Diaries

I'm a pilot obsessed with flying and all things aviation. This podcast series covers more than a century of commercial aviation and how its shaped the world. Aviation is now safer than its ever been, but it took one hundred years of learning and often through accidents and incidents to reduce the risk of flying.

Last refreshed: July 7th, 2025 at 11:41 AM ⓘ

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Episodes

Episode 11 - Fires on board commercial airliners and the mystery of the SAA Helderberg

This episode covers the terrifying examples of fire on board commercial airliners. One of the first was the Imperial Airways Armstrong Argosy II incident in Dixmude Belgium in 1933 where a fire thought to have been started by a passenger attempting to commit suicide caused the plane to crash killing all 15 on board. It was the deadliest accident at that point in the history of British civil aviation. It is also thought to be one of the first airliner ever lost due to sabotage. When you hear the ...

Dec 29, 2019•20 min

Episode 10 - In-Air break ups, the miracle of Juliane Koepcke & the Comet Catastrophe

In this episode we’ll look at in-air breakups of aeroplanes – caused by poor flying, poor design, or poor maintenance and bad weather. In some cases all four of these together. However as with all things aviation, every accident leads to an equal and opposite reaction .. to misquote the great Sir Isaac Newton. That reaction luckily for us, is called Aviation safety standards. The terrible truth is that people die and then safety improves. So let’s start with the 32 year-old Charles Rolls. He was...

Dec 08, 2019•18 min

Episode 9 - Boeing MAX 8 accidents & the failure of governance

This week it’s the terrible crashes involving the Boeing 737 MAX 8 – one in October 2018 and the other in March 2019. In both cases an automated trim called the Movement Characteristics Augmentation System is believed to have been behind the accidents. The story is also a shocking failure by the Federal Aviation Authority in managing a crisis, as well as serious questions of governance at Boeing. While the accident reports are awaited, there is enough information from both FAA and Boeing itself ...

Nov 01, 2019•28 min

Episode 8 – Japan Airlines JAL Flight 123 & the dangers of shoddy aeroplane maintenance

This episode features an air crash in 1985 is the deadliest single-aircraft plane crash in history where 520 of the 524 passengers and crew died. Remarkably, 4 survived - all women. But this is also a story where the number of survivors could have been higher had the Japanese rescuers hit the ground earlier. As you’ll hear, authorities were alerted about the whereabouts of the crashed plane early by American military search and rescue, but then presumed all on board had died and delayed a rescue...

Sep 21, 2019•19 min

Episode 7 – The Lovettsville Air Disaster and lightning strikes on planes

Strap in this week, because its all about lightning. We’re looking at one crash in particular, the Lovettsville Air Disaster which took place on August 31 1940 near the town of Lovettsville in Virginia, the United States. There were 21 passengers and 4 crew on board and all 25 died in the accident, including U.S. Senator Ernest Lundeen from Minnesota. As you’ll hear, his death was regarded as extremely sinister because he was under FBI investigation at the time. But we’ll get to that in a while....

Aug 30, 2019•16 min

Episode 6 – The 1946 Mistberget & Gauli Glacier Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT) crashes

It’s time for that terrible acronym – CFIT – which means Controlled Flight into Terrain. That’s where the pilot is unable to see the terrain for whatever reason, and believes that he or she is higher than they are, or somewhere else, or the equipment on board has failed and altitude readings are wrong. This often happens unfortunately when a let down is being flown – which is a technique that allows a pilot to pass hills and other obstructions before they are let down to a low altitude. There ar...

Aug 15, 2019•21 min

Episode 5 – Miss Macao: The first commercial airliner to be hijacked

I’m your host and pilot, Desmond Latham. Every week we tackle a different area of aviation and this week it’s the history of hijackings. The first ever hijacking of a commercial plane took place on the 16th July 1948. It involved a Catalina Seaplane owned by Cathay Pacific and operated by subsidiary Macau Air Transport Company registered in Hong Kong. At that time Hong Kong was still a British Territory. And ironically the plane that took off from the sea was going to be affected by what was cal...

Aug 04, 2019•18 min

Episode 4 – A mid-air collision involving a De Havilland in 1922 leads to the fly to the right rule

This week we’ll feature two accidents from the early 1920s that changed rules. The first is a mid-air collision that took place in April 1922 over Picardie in France, and the second was the response to an investigation into a crash of a passenger plane flying between London and Manchester in England. As we’ll hear, both led to new air regulations and rules that we still use today including a rule of keeping to the right, the introduction of air routes and the other allowing for transparency in r...

Jul 20, 2019•15 min

Episode 3 – Malaysian Airlines MH 17 and how it was shot down by a Russian BUK missile

Every week we delve into the causes and repercussions of plane crashes across the world and how these have led to improved aviation safety over time. This week its the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines MH17 which was hit by a Russian Buk missile (SA-11) while flying at 33 000 feet over the eastern Ukraine in July 2014. While Moscow has denied its air-to-ground missile systems were involved, an investigation by Dutch and independent journalists has found otherwise as I'll explain. I have also u...

Jul 05, 2019•18 min

Episode 2- Air France 447, frozen pitot tubes & confusion on the flight deck

This is the series that tracks air disasters through history and how each has led directly to the safety we almost take for granted every time we climb aboard an airliner. Last week it was the story of the first recognized commercial air crash involving a dirigible over Chicago in July 1919 that killed 13 people, three on board and 10 on the ground. That led to new no-fly rules over city central business districts. This week we have jumped forward to the crash of Air France 447 which took place ...

Jun 25, 2019•24 min

Episode 1 - An Airship plunges into a Chicago Bank

This series called Plane Crash Diaries is really about how safe aviation has become. This sounds like a contradiction, but its through the experience of more than a century of commercial aviation that experts have been able to build an extremely safe sector in the 21st Century. Decades of improving safety and regulations as well as operating procedures have led to a form of transport that is now regarded as crucial to the development of the world economy. There are more than 2,000 airlines opera...

Jun 18, 2019•20 min

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