''Mayday'' is a Canadian

documentary A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

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 , with a budget. In Canada itself, the program premiered on Discovery Channel Canada on 3 September 2003. Cineflix also secured deals with France 5,

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel, known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery, is an American cable channel that is best known for its ongoing reality television shows and promotion of pseudoscience. It init ...

, Canal D, TVNZ,

Seven Network Seven Network (stylised 7Network, and commonly known as Channel Seven or simply Seven) is an Australian commercial free-to-air Television broadcasting in Australia, television network. It is owned by Seven West Media, Seven West Media Limited, ...

, 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, CGI or 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 Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled air ...

, 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 , 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 Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

. While in production, the series was sold to France 5,

, and Canal D. On , Cineflix announced that it had sold the series to TVNZ,

, and Holland Media Group. Later that year on 22 October, 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 All3Media Limited is a British worldwide independent television, film, and digital production and distribution company based in London. The All3Media group consists of more than 50 production and distribution companies and labels from the Uni ...

) 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 The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

, 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 six 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.

References

Informational notes Citations