Chronicles over 40 of history's most devastating engineering failures, including the Exxon Valdez disaster to a nuclear meltdown at a secret government facility, to the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina. Uses state-of-the-art special effects to investigate not only what went wrong, but what can be learned from these disasters. The catastrophes recounted led to the creation of Superfund sites for the cleanup of toxic waste, improved safety standards for cars, planes, and ships; and new techniques for building roads, bridges, and buildings that will withstand nature's most destructive forces.

Title from container. Originally broadcast on television as individual episodes between 1999 and 2006.

disc 1. Engineering disasters 4: The fire at the Las Vegas MGM Grand Hotel, the collapse of Seattle's :Lacey V. Murrow Floating Bridge, the car that spurred the creation of the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, and the flaw that grounded the first commercial jet are among the engineering disasters that led to improvements in design and safety -- Engineering disasters 5: The examination of how an entire lake and the surrounding land was sucked into a Louisiana salt mine, and what happens when a California freeway meets a large earthquake, and going inside the belly of the doomed Exxon Valdez. -- Engineering disasters 6: an in-depth look at the Marines' AV-8 Harrier "Jump Jet," the Ford Explorer/Firestone rollovers, fire on the Piper Alpha offshore oil rig, derailment of a high-speed train in Germany, and computer errors that brought the world to the brink of accidental nuclear war -- Engineering disasters 7: A forty-year old-fire still burns in an abandoned mine beneath the streets of Centralia, [PA], two hundred sixty million gallons of water surge through a quiet Los Angeles neighborhood, a passenger plane shakes itself apart, and a freighter ship topples a Tampa Bay bridge. disc 2. Engineering disasters 8: investigates the 1983 collapse of a New England bridge, the sinking of an offshore oil rig. a devastating 19th- century flood in Pennsylvania, and the explosion of a jet-fuel plant in Nevada -- Engineering disasters 9: investigates what happens when a runaway freighter ship strikes a riverside marketplace, and witness the aftermath of a British airship disaster, and a roof collapse in an Illinois arena -- Engineering disasters 10; From the horrifying Union Carbide explosion in India to Stalin's disastrous Siberian canal project, investigators delve into the a few of the most tragic engineering catastrophes around the world -- Engineering disasters 11: Experts recreate and examine a devastating a devastating flood in China that killed 145.000 people, a mansion swallowed by a sinkhole, a dance competition turned deadly, and an enormous gas explosion. disc 3. Engineering disasters 12: reveals the dramatic stories behind the Texas A&M bonfire collapse, a Milwaukee drinking water contamination, a tank design flaw that contributed to thousands of World War II deaths, and Denver's airport baggage system turned into a high-tech nightmare -- Engineering disasters 13: attempts to answer questions about Patriot missile failures, the collapse of 7 World Trade Center Building, the toxic waste-filled Love Canal, and the Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire -- Engineering disasters 14: interviews with engineering experts shed light on what went wrong during a flash flood of molasses, a massive tanker explosion, and a terrifying subway cave-in -- Engineering disasters 15: a devastating flood brings Chicago to a standstill, a terrifying accident traps hundreds in an Alpine tunnel, a Mississippi riverboat explodes, and a cockpit warning system malfunction results in a fiery crash. disc 4. Engineering disasters 16: travels the globe to uncover the stories behind Mexico's exploding streets, an Italian mining disaster, an oil tanker run aground of the coast of England, and a small Texas town where children are forever entombed in the ruins of their school -- Engineering disasters 17: A crack in a California street transforms into a gigantic sinkhole, a fatal roof collapse at Charles de Gaulle International Airport causes chaos, and the flaw behind the plane crash that killed Knute Rockne is examined-- Engineering disasters 18: takes a look at the political pressures that put soldiers at risk in the case of the Army's Stryker Light Armored Vehicle, development demands that have forever altered California's landlocked Salton Sea, a labor-saving device which exposed consumers to dangerous levels of radiation, and the deaths of three men during the building of the Milwaukee Brewers' stadium. disc 5. Engineering disasters 19: probes the stories behind the sinking the Edmund Fitzgerald, two mysterious Boeing 737 crashes, and one of the least known nuclear catastrophes in U.S. history (a meltdown at a secret government facility) -- Engineering disasters 20: investigators reveal how a disregard for safety in the BP Refinery in Texas led to one of America's worst industrial accidents, as well as the unusual events that caused American Airlines flight 587 to fall from the sky, and the reasons behind NASA's Skylab failure -- Engineering disasters: New Orleans: As Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, design flaws on escape routes from the city and engineering errors at the Superdome shelter contributed to the nightmare. Join "geological detectives" as they sift through the rubble to expose how the levee and the century-old pump system were a disaster in the making.