Seconds from Disaster — Season 1, Episode 6: Wreck of the Sunset Limited

Episode synopsis

September 1993. The captain of a towboat unwittingly causes the collapse of a bridge over the Big Bayou Canot. When an Amtrak train comes along, it derails with 47 lives lost. Why was such a hideous mistake made? How could it have been prevented? Could it have been prevented at all? Wreck of the Sunset Limited explains why over 40 people died that Autumn day.

About Seconds from Disaster

Seconds from Disaster is a US/UK-produced documentary television programme that investigates historically relevant man-made and natural disasters of the 20th century. Each episode aims to explain a single incidental by analyzing the causes and circumstances that ultimately effected the disaster. The program uses re-enactments, interviews, testimonies, and CGI to analyze the sequence of events second-by-second for the audience. Narrators for the show are Ashton Smith, Richard Vaughan and Peter Guinness.

More episodes from Season 1

• E1Crash of the Concorde (Concorde)
• E2Tunnel Inferno
• E3The Bomb in Oklahoma City
• E4Fire On the Star (Fire Onboard the Star)
• E5Derailment at Eschede (High Speed Train Wreck)
• E7Meltdown in Chernobyl
• E8Inferno at Guadalajara
• E9Fire on the Ski Slope
• E10Explosion in the North Sea
• E11Flood at Stava Dam
• E12Collision on the Runway
• E13Pentagon 9/11