Hopefully Bear Grylls made it out alive.
The Discovery Channel (DStv 121) crashed a passenger jet in the Mexican desert with a pilot who ejected from the Boeing 727. The crash test dummies inside were not so lucky. Discovery is filming a plane crash from the inside to show exactly what happens when a plane crashes for an upcoming episode of the show Curiosity.
The special Curiosity episode will be shown worldwide later this year as a TV special. Discovery, working with Britain's Channel 4 as well as Germany's Pro Sieben, deliberately staged the real-life plane crash with multiple cameras aboard to capture the rapid descent, the impact and what exactly happens to everything - and everyone - on a plane in such an event.
The pilot ejected minutes before the crash while an operator remotely steered the 170 seat jet for the last few minutes.
Discovery will now get high quality film footage of what happens inside a plane when it goes down.
"The project aims to recreate a serious, but survivable, passenger jet crash landing with a real aircraft in order to allow an international team of experts to study the crashworthiness of the aircraft's airframe and cabin as well as the impact of crashes on the human body, plus possible means of increasing passenger survivability and evaluating new black box crash-recording technology," says Discovery in a press statement.
"The plane was crashed in a remote and unpopulated part of the Sonoran Desert of Baja California, Mexico. The location was chosen after an extensive international search to find a suitable location offering the perfect conditions for this groundbreaking scientific project."
"For the first time, leading scientists and veteran crash investigators, who have been enthusiastic supporters of this project, witness a plane crash in real time and explore what happens to the airframe and cabin, as well as the effects on the human body during a catastrophe of this magnitude."
"This has been an extraordinary feat of organization, involving up to 300 people on location, including the production team, pilots, experts, risk management, plus local crew, military, fire teams and police. This is the culmination of four years of planning and hard work," says Discovery.
