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Mayday
Also known as	Air Crash Investigation Air Emergency (National Geographic Channel, U.S.) Air Disasters (Smithsonian Channel, U.S.) Mayday: Air Disaster (Weather Channel, U.S.)
Genre	Documentary Docudrama
Created by	André Barro
Narrated by	Stephen Bogaert for Canada and the U.S. Bill Ratner for the U.S. (Smithsonian Channel) Jonathan Aris for Australia, Asia, and Europe David Bamber (Season one narrator for Channel Five in the United Kingdom only) Michael Daingerfield for the U.S. (The Weather Channel)
Country of origin	Canada
Original language	English
No. of seasons	25
No. of episodes	270 (list of episodes)
Production
Running time	45 minutes
Production company	Cineflix Productions
Original release
Network	Discovery Channel Canada
Release	3 September 2003 (2003-09-03) – present

Mayday is a Canadian documentary television program examining air crashes, near-crashes, hijackings, bombings, and other disasters. Mayday uses re-enactments and computer-generated imagery to reconstruct the sequence of events leading up to each disaster. In addition, survivors, aviation experts, retired pilots, and crash investigators are interviewed, to explain how the emergencies came about, how they were investigated, and how they might have been prevented.

Cineflix started production on 13 August 2002 (2002-08-13), with a CA$2.5 million budget. In Canada itself, the program premiered on Discovery Channel Canada on 3 September 2003. Cineflix also secured deals with France 5, Discovery Channel, Canal D, TVNZ, Seven Network, Holland Media Group, and National Geographic Channel to take Mayday in 144 countries and 26 languages. The series was received well by critics and nominated for a number of awards. In 2010, Sharon Zupancic won a Gemini Award for her work on the season-seven episode, "Lockerbie Disaster", that depicts the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988. A University of New South Wales senior lecturer, Raymond Lewis, conducted a study on teaching strategy loosely based on the series. Lewis's results indicated using the strategy had "a positive effect on learning outcomes" for prospective pilots.

Hallmarks

The series features re-enactments, interviews (from survivors if there are any, or from people involved in the investigation), eyewitness testimony, computer-generated imagery, and in nearly all of the episodes, voice-actor readings of cockpit voice recorder (CVR) transcripts to reconstruct the sequence of events for the audience. Several passengers and crew members (whether they survived the incident or not) are picked and actors/actresses play the roles of those passengers and crew 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 views 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 personnel leading up to the eventual crash or emergency landing are then recreated. Scenes in the cockpit and air traffic control centres are recreated using the transcript obtained from the CVR of the aircraft and other recordings made at the time.

Throughout the episodes, the victims (or the relatives and friends of the victims) are interviewed, adding further information about a case as it relates to them personally. In addition, aviation experts, retired pilots, and investigators are interviewed on the evidence and explain how these emergencies came about and how they could have been prevented.

Production and distribution

Cineflix started production for Mayday on 13 August 2002 (2002-08-13), with a C$2.5 million budget, after Channel Five commissioned the six-part, one-hour-each series. To keep the costs down, most of the production was kept at Cineflix's offices in Toronto. While in production, the series was sold to France 5, Discovery Channel, and Canal D. On 2 June 2003 (2003-06-02), Cineflix announced that it had sold the series to TVNZ, Seven Network, and Holland Media Group. Later that year on October 10 (10-22), a month before the airing of the first season, Cineflix announced that it had secured a major international deal with National Geographic Channel to air Mayday in 144 countries and 26 languages.

In 2011, Smithsonian Networks aired season five, renamed Air Disasters, making it the first time in the United States that Mayday had aired on a channel other than National Geographic. On 25 January 2012, Cineflix Rights announced that it would be selling seasons 8, 9, and 11 (23 episodes) to Smithsonian Networks. On 28 March 2014, Cineflix Rights announced a deal with Smithsonian Networks to air seasons three, four, and 13 (34 episodes). Air Disasters is also available on Paramount+, which also carries some Smithsonian Networks programming.

In 2020, The Weather Channel in the United States began airing several episodes of the series under the title Mayday: Air Disaster. Starting in 2021 and continuing to this day, the Wonder and On the Move YouTube channels (owned by Little Dot Studios, a subsidiary of All3Media) uploaded the first nine seasons of Mayday and the Crash of the Century special with the episodes in their full uncut versions and are available in all countries, with the exception of the United Kingdom, where they are geoblocked.

In the United States, the show's tenth and twelfth seasons are available for streaming online on free, advertiser-supported streaming services Tubi and Freevee under the title Mayday: Air Disasters, while the show's first season is also made available for streaming online on Amazon Prime Video, provided by MagellanTV, under the title MayDay: Air Disaster Investigations.

Episodes

As of 12 January 2025, 276 episodes of Mayday have aired, not including Season 25, including five Science of Disaster specials, three Crash Scene Investigation spin-offs, which do not examine aircraft crashes, and a sub-series labelled The Accident Files that aired five seasons.

Reception

The series has been well received by critics. Franck Tabouring from DVD Verdict said, "It's a well-produced show with plenty of compelling information about tragic accidents, telling how some people survived and others didn't."

The senior lecturer at the University of New South Wales, Raymond Lewis, conducted a study on teaching strategy loosely based on the series. The study was done with prospective pilots studying the "Aircraft Systems for Aviators" undergraduate course by including "study of air accidents and incidents associated with aircraft systems." The results of the study showed "the use of air accidents and incident scenarios had a positive effect on learning outcomes."

Awards and nominations

Overall, the series has been nominated for nine awards, winning two, both for film editing.

Home media

In 2009, Entertainment One released the complete first season of the show on DVD in Region 1 in Canada.

Shock Records has released Seasons 1–18 in Australia as a 48-disc set, coded NTSC, Region 4.

See also

• Seconds From Disaster
• Seismic Seconds
• Blueprint for Disaster
• Black Box
• Why Planes Crash
• Terror in the Skies

Notes

1. The UK broadcast of season one was hosted on Channel Five and narrated by David Bamber.
2. Alternatively known as Air Crash Investigation in Australia (Seven Network), New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom; Air Crash: Disaster Revealed on 5Select and some Asian and European countries; and additionally known as Air Emergency, Air Disasters, and Mayday: Air Disaster in the United States.

References

1. Daingerfield, Michael (14 November 2022). "Michael Daingerfield – Voice Over". Archived from the original on 14 November 2022. Retrieved 14 November 2022.
2. "Original Show – Mayday: Air Disaster | The Weather Channel Television Network". weathergroup.com. Archived from the original on 27 July 2020. Retrieved 26 July 2020.
3. ^ Lewis, Raymond (December 2009). "Air Crash Investigators – comments on a pedagogical strategy to increase intrinsic motivation to enhance student learning" (PDF). 20th Annual Conference for the Australasian Association for Engineering Education, 6–9 December 2009: Engineering the Curriculum. Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 July 2011.
4. ^ Tabouring, Franck (23 April 2009). "Mayday – Air Disasters". DVD Verdict. Archived from the original on 15 May 2011.
5. "New Cineflix science series Mayday starts production" (Press release). Cineflix. 13 August 2002. Archived from the original on 26 March 2012. Retrieved 8 November 2010.
6. Luke, Donna (1 January 2003). "No Borders" (Interview). Interviewed by Susan Zeller for Realscreen. Archived from the original on 11 December 2019. Retrieved 8 November 2010.
7. ^ "Cineflix goes global with popular science series Mayday. Germany's Prosieben latest channel to acquire the show" (Press release). Cineflix. 2 June 2003. Archived from the original on 27 October 2010.
8. "Cineflix International strikes NATGEO deal for new popular science series Mayday" (Press release). Cineflix. 22 October 2003. Archived from the original on 27 October 2010.
9. "Cineflix Rights seals North and Latin American deals" (Press release). Cineflix. 25 January 2012. Archived from the original on 29 September 2018. Retrieved 27 January 2012.
10. "Cineflix Rights seals multiple deals in advance of MIPTV 2014" (Press release). Cineflix. 28 March 2014. Archived from the original on 5 September 2014. Retrieved 5 September 2014.
11. "Wonder". littledotstudios.com. 14 October 2020. Archived from the original on 5 March 2021. Retrieved 4 January 2022.
12. "Wonder – YouTube". Archived from the original on 31 May 2021. Retrieved 4 January 2022 – via YouTube.
13. "On the Move". YouTube. Archived from the original on 17 May 2021. Retrieved 26 October 2022.
14. "Watch Mayday Air Disasters". Tubi. Archived from the original on 20 December 2021. Retrieved 26 October 2022.
15. "Watch MayDay: Air Disaster Investigations". Amazon Prime Video. Archived from the original on 5 October 2021. Retrieved 26 October 2022.
16. "Watch Air Disasters". Amazon Prime Video. Archived from the original on 26 October 2022. Retrieved 26 October 2022.
17. "Mayday: Air Disaster - Program Overview". Cineflix Rights. Archived from the original on 7 March 2019. Retrieved 7 March 2019.
18. Cite error: The named reference finland was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
19. "Mayday: Air Disasters". Amazon. July 2016. Archived from the original on 26 October 2022. Retrieved 26 October 2022.

External links

• Cineflix: Mayday
• Cineflix: Mayday – Science of Disaster (Archive)
• Cineflix: Crash of the Century
• Mayday on Discovery Channel Canada (Archive)
• Air Crash Investigation on National Geographic Channel UK
• Air Crash Investigation National Geographic Channel Australia
• Air Disasters on Smithsonian Channel (Archive)
• Mayday at IMDb
• Mayday's channel on YouTube

• 2000s Canadian documentary television series
• 2010s Canadian documentary television series
• 2003 Canadian television series debuts
• Canadian television docudramas
• Television series by Cineflix
• Discovery Channel (Canadian TV channel) original programming
• Documentary television series about aviation
• Canadian English-language television shows
• National Geographic (American TV channel) original programming
• Television series by Bell Media
• Television shows about aviation accidents or incidents
• Television series featuring reenactments