Surviving Disaster

6 February 1958: the plane carrying Manchester United crashes during take-off in Germany, killing 23 of the 43 on board, including eight members of the "Busby Babes".

Eruption at Mount St Helens. Rising almost 10,000 feet over Washington State, the volcano had not erupted for more than 100 years until May 1980, when its unexpected explosion unle...

April 1986: a blast at a Soviet nuclear plant emits 400 times more radiation than Hiroshima's bomb. Adrian Edmondson stars in a drama documentary recalling a catastrophe that the U...

17 October 1989: a tremor measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale causes major damage to the coastal city, trapping scores of drivers on the Cypress freeway. This drama documentary vivi...

Terror awaited men and women sailing in the infamous offshore race of August 1979. This drama documentary reconstructs the ferocious Irish Sea storm that hit the race and scattered...

In November 1979, Iranian militants seized the US embassy in Tehran, taking 66 Americans hostage. President Carter ordered an elite US military force to launch a top-secret rescue,...

Once a symbol of independence for the Estonian people, the ferry ventured into the Baltic's high winds and ferocious waves in September 1994. Under pressure to arrive on time, the...