1982, and it's bitter cold at Washington National Airport, 24 degree Farenheit. The nearby Potomac River is iced over and it's snowing. A Florida Airlines jet liner takes off for warmer climes but doesn't get far before it loses lift, bounces off a bridge ad slams onto and through the Potomac River.
The accident became well known because so much news camera footage became available, because the crash happened so near the nation's capital, and because there was a hero.
Most of the passengers and crew died but six reached the surface in varying degrees of distress. A Park Police helicopter managed to pull four of the six to safety. The fifth, weakened and half conscious, couldn't hold on to the lifesaver. She was lying face up in the river, a thousand people prepared to watch her drown, except for one man who disregarded the challenges, dived into the river, swam quickly to the victim and pulled her ashore. The sixth survivor had reached the surface but was injured and trapped by wreckage so he turned down the offer of a cable lift and died of hypothermia.
The accident was due to what the investigating team frankly call pilot error. The captain and first officer simply didn't have enough experience dealing with ice and snow storms. They failed to have the airplane properly de-iced and ignored some of the instruments. The co-pilot remarked that something was strange but the captain didn't bother to answer. He'd had several unsatisfactory ratings.
The series continues to surprise me. Each episode is like a Sherlock Holmes adventure in which one possibility after another is disposed of and the underlying causes revealed. The CGIs are impeccable.