Air Crash Investigation

A serious design flaw in the cargo door of a DC‑10 aircraft caused it to lose control and ultimately crash. Investigators had already pinpointed the same defect as the cause of a comparable crash two years earlier, yet it remained uncorrected.

Behind Closed Doors is a programme presented as a single episode that investigates a specific aviation disaster. The series adopts a factual style, concentrating on the technical and investigative aspects of the incident rather than dramatising characters or plot twists. Its aim is to explain how a particular engineering mistake led to a catastrophic outcome. The episode centres on a serious design defect in the cargo door of a DC‑10 aircraft. That flaw caused the aircraft to break apart in flight, resulting in a fatal crash. What makes the story striking is that investigators had already pinpointed the same defect as the cause of a similar accident that occurred two years before. The programme details how, despite the earlier investigation’s findings, the cargo‑door problem remained unresolved. It follows the chain of events that allowed the defect to persist, showing the gap between the identification of the issue and any corrective action. Viewers see how the unaddressed flaw directly contributed to the later disaster. In its concluding segment, the episode underscores the consequences of overlooking a known safety risk. By linking the two crashes, it highlights the importance of swift engineering fixes after an investigation. The narrative demonstrates that the failure to act on the identified design flaw ultimately led to the loss of the DC‑10.