PART 1 | In July 2002, a group of Russian schoolchildren boarded a Tupolev 154 headed for Spain.

On duty that night in the Zurich Control Center was a lone air traffic controller - and he was at the end of his tether. Preoccupied, he failed to notice that the Russian plane was now on a collision course with another aircraft, a Boeing 757 belonging to the cargo company, DHL, heading north to Belgium.

Peter, belatedly recognizing the problem, immediately ordered the Russian plane to descend. In the Russian cockpit, there was confusion, two contradictory warnings. Their lives depended on which one they chose. They chose to listen to the Controller. What the Russian pilots didn’t know was that the DHL plane’s anti-collision device had also sounded a warning, telling the DHL plane (correctly) to descend. The two planes flew into each other, 71 people died, most of them children.

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Season 2 Episode 4 "Deadly Crossroads": July 2002 - a preoccupied traffic controller failed to notice that a Russian plane was on a collision course with another aircraft. Two warnings appeared and their lives depended on which one they chose. Not long after, the two planes flew into each other, 71 people died, most of them children.

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