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It was a little after 4 o’clock in the afternoon, on Friday, July 2nd, 1982, when Pan Am Flight 759, a B-727 carrying 138 passengers and 7 crew members, began to climb from the runway at New Orleans International Airport. In only a moment’s time, the narrow-body airliner slammed back down to the ground, after just barely becoming airborne. It was stormy around the airport, but there were no advisories, watches, warnings or aviation warnings in effect. It was noted by the plane's own weather radar that rain showers (not thunderstorms) were located near the departure end of the runway. Given the weather conditions and the crew's flight manual, there were no avoidance or delay procedures recommended. When the planed crash-landed, it set a neighborhood adjacent to the airport on fire.

What happened to Flight 759? Why was the plane unable to climb away from the airport? Why, despite thunderstorms in the area, did the plane's weather radar not indicate the storms? Why were there no weather alerts in effect?

This is the story of a plane crash nearing the end of an era - an era of mysterious weather with unknown capabilities and destruction. Not that weather forecasters have it 100% figured out today, but this crash happened at a time when one of the great weather mysteries, the microburst, was only just beginning to be unraveled.

Join Radar Contact Lost for a seat in the cockpit of the fated airliner, as well as what it was like to be an aviation meteorologist in the early 1980s. Learn about advancements in thunderstorm prediction and even how to predict a microburst yourself. Also, learn why the latest technology of the time, the Low Level Wind Shear Alert System, was not up to the task.

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The first significant snowfall of the season had just begun in central Colorado. At Denver's Stapleton International Airport, Continental Flight 1713 began to accelerate down the runway for takeoff. Within a moment of lifting off the ground, the DC-9 slammed back down onto the runway, rolled over and skidded on its roof. The left wing tore away completely, then the skin of the fuselage ripped away, exposing the passengers to the frigid air, the snow and the horrifying sight of the blurred runway speeding past - nearly close enough to touch.

On this November day in 1987, a series of mistakes by the pilots of two airliners, an airline, as well as the air traffic controllers caused the crash that took 28 lives. As investigators arrived at the crash site, they had a complicated situation to untangle. Why did the captain of the DC-9 put the very inexperienced co-pilot in charge of the take-off, despite the significant snowstorm and his lack of experience? Why were the air traffic controllers unaware of this plane's position until just moments before it started to roll down the runway? How did the heavy snow impact the air operations at the airport? Why was the crash initially blamed on aircraft icing, yet the plane had been de-iced before takeoff?

In this episode, the Radar Contact Lost team will examine these questions, plus: We'll look at the phenomenon known as wake turbulence, we'll examine the weather conditions at the time of the crash, and the actions of the air traffic controllers leading up to the crash. We'll also discuss how aircraft are de-iced and the difference between de-icing and anti-icing. All of this and much more, including, of all things, a wake turbulence love story.

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This episode is about the crash of a small, twin-engine plane: a Beechcraft Baron 58. This crash occurred on April 22, 2019 in the Texas Hill Country, about an hour northwest (by car) from San Antonio. The flight was a relatively short one, from the west side of Houston to the Texas Hill Country town of Kerrville. The focus of the NTSB investigation of the crash was that the plane ran out of fuel, and it did. But why did a seemingly simple item reach up to bite this pilot and take the lives of all onboard? As usual with airplane crashes, there are several issues that contributed to this crash. The Radar Contact Lost Team will look closely at each issue, including an examination of the weather conditions that caused the pilot to make critical decisions that contributed to the crash - even though the weather conditions were not mentioned in the NTSB report.