Mayday (Canadian TV series)

The series features re-enactments, interviews, 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. All scenes in the cockpit and air traffic control centres are recreated using the actual script 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.[3] 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.[3]

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 series.[4] To keep the costs down, most of the production was kept at Cineflix's offices in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.[5] While in production, the series was sold to France 5, Discovery Channel, and Canal D.[6] On 2 June 2003 (2003-06-02), Cineflix announced that it had sold the series to TVNZ, Seven Network, and Holland Media Group.[6] 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.[7]

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.[8] On 28 March 2014, Cineflix Rights announced a deal with Smithsonian Networks to air seasons three, four, and 13 (34 episodes).[9]

As of September 2020, a total of 180 episodes of Mayday had been aired, including five Science of Disaster specials and three Crash Scene Investigation spin-offs, which do not examine aircraft crashes. A 21st season, consisting of ten 60-minute episodes, is scheduled for release in 2021, with a 22nd season in production.[10]

The series has been well received by critics.[3] 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."[3]

The senior lecturer of 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."[2]

• Seconds From Disaster
• Seismic Seconds
• Blueprint for Disaster
• Aircrash Confidential
• Black Box
• Why Planes Crash

• Cineflix: Mayday
• Cineflix: Mayday – Science of Disaster (Archive)
• Cineflix: Crash of the Century
• Mayday on Discovery Channel Canada
• Air Crash Investigation on National Geographic Channel UK
• Air Crash Investigation National Geographic Channel Australia
• Air Disasters on Smithsonian Channel
• Mayday at IMDb
• Air Emergency at TV.com