Brothers

Episode 1

When an 8-year old waved goodbye to his teenage brother at an airfield near Seattle one June morning, that little boy had no idea that events transpiring that fateful day would profoundly affect him and his family and dozens of other families around the United States for the next six decades.

The Wreckage

Episode 2

After Flight 293 disappeared, searchers scoured the Gulf of Alaska for survivors but found only wreckage. More than six decades later, questions remain about what they discovered and what they missed, and families wonder what it would take to launch a new search.

Best Friends

Episode 3

Susan and Jody are best friends and high school sophomores in El Paso, Texas. When Jody’s Air Force dad is transferred to Alaska, the whole family heads for Anchorage on Flight 293. In ways that sometimes defy explanation, Susan and Jody’s bond has never broken.

Scuttlebutt

Episode 4

The pilot of Flight 293 had thousands of hours of experience stretching back to the 1930s. Captain Albert Olsen was a veteran employee of Northwest Airlines who devoted years of his career developing important safety innovations, and whose son and daughter still live in the long shadow of his loss.

The Ditching

Episode 5

When Flight 293 crashed into the Gulf of Alaska in June 1963, it wasn’t the first time a Northwest Airlines DC-7C serving as a military charter between McChord and Elmendorf had gone down. In October 1962, the same thing happened to a previous Flight 293, but with a completely different outcome.

The Crew

Episode 6

A flight engineer who was a sought after racing boat mechanic. A first officer who was a decorated World War II fighter pilot. A flight attendant who had published a book of poems about air travel who was hiding two secrets. When tragedy struck Flight 293, these were the men and women whose job it was to respond.

Leave No One Behind

Episode 7

The Defense Department tells service members and families that they will leave no fallen comrades behind, and part of the military works hard to recover those missing in action. However, hundreds of the missing - including many aboard Flight 293 - don't fit the definition of "missing in action" and are forgotten.

Closure

Episode 8

With help from Flight 293 families and a network of aviation and military historians and others simply interested righting a decades-old wrong, Greg Barrowman leads an effort to publicly commemorate the loss of those aboard the DC-7C, and to finally dedicate a permanent monument to the tragedy.