Mayday, known as Air Crash Investigation(s) outside of the United States and Canada and also known as Mayday: Air Disaster (The Weather Channel) or Air Disasters (Smithsonian Channel) in the United States, is a Canadian documentary television series produced by Cineflix that recounts air crashes, near-crashes, fires, hijackings, bombings, and other mainly flight-related disasters and crises. It reveals the events that led to each crisis or disaster, their causes as determined by the official investigating body or bodies, and the measures they recommended to prevent a similar incident from happening again. The programs use re-enactments, interviews, eyewitness testimony, computer-generated imagery, cockpit voice recordings, and official reports to reconstruct the sequences of events.
This does not include "Crash of the Century", a 2005 90-minute special investigating the Tenerife airport disaster, as the program is not branded as Mayday by Cineflix, even though the program was produced similarly to Mayday. This includes five Science of Disaster specials, each examining multiple crashes with similar causes. For broadcasters that do not use the series name Mayday, three Season 3 episodes were labelled as Crash Scene Investigation spin-offs, examining marine or rail disasters.
A sub-series labelled The Accident Files began airing in 2018 and, as of 2024, has aired six seasons. The first five seasons consisted of ten episodes per series and the sixth season consisted of six episodes. This sub-series consists entirely of summarized versions of air disasters previously investigated in the primary Mayday series, but combined based on similarities between the incidents, such as fires or pilot error. Each episode covers three accidents and 15 minutes is dedicated to each of the disasters that are covered.
Series overview
Episodes Note: Episodes are ordered by their production number, not by their original air date.
Season 1 (2003)
Season 2 (2005)
Season 3 (2005) Note: This is the first season produced in high definition.
Season 4 (2007) This season saw a change to the overall format of the episodes. In previous seasons, all episodes used a documentary-led format, where facts about the accident were known from the start: the episodes were now presented from the perspective of the crew and passengers initially, and the cause of an accident was revealed towards the end. This format is now the only way that the episodes are produced.
Season 5 (2008)
Season 6 (2007–08) Special Season 6 of Mayday is the first Science of Disaster season, consisting of three episodes. With the exceptions of BOAC Flight 781 and South African Airways Flight 201, all the incidents described in these episodes are summarised versions taken from their respective full episodes from the previous five seasons.
Season 7 (2009)
Season 8 (2009) Special Season 8 of Mayday is the second Science of Disaster season, consisting of two episodes.
Season 9 (2010)
Season 10 (2011)
Season 11 (2011–12)
Season 12 (2012–13)
Season 13 (2013–14)
Season 14 (2015)
Season 15 (2016)
Season 16 (2016–17)
Season 17 (2017)
Season 18 (2018)
Season 19 (2019)
Season 20 (2020)
Season 21 (2021)
Season 22 (2022)
Season 23 (2023)
Season 24 (2024)
Season 25 (2025)
Season 26 (2026)
The Accident Files
Season 1 (2018)
Season 2 (2019)
Season 3 (2020)
Season 4 (2021)
Season 5 (2022)
Season 6 (2024)
Alternate titles The following table lists the alternative titles used by broadcasters for Mayday, the original Canadian series; Air Crash Investigation, the British and Asia-Pacific (National Geographic Channel) versions; and Air Emergency and Air Disasters (Smithsonian Channel), the American versions of the series. The American column also shows the Smithsonian Channel's season and episode numbers, which differ significantly from the official season and episode number designations by Cineflix. Episodes are ordered by their production number, and special episodes and spin-offs are italicized.