The Plane Crash, Channel 4, review For obvious reasons, aircraft crash experiments are extremely rare. Investigators must wait for the real thing to do their work. Nasa did once deliberately crash a plane in 1984, we were shown, but it cost the equivalent of £16 million and they lost control of the flight. The whole plane blew up, revealing nothing other than how pretty a massive fireball is if you're far enough away. The show's scientists, such as the unexcitable Anne Evans who worked on the Lockerbie investigation, were too detached. There was much talk about the experimental outcomes needed to lead to maximum collection of data, as if we were contemplating spots of green mould in a Petri dish. It was left to the pilot, the reassuringly grey-whiskered JimBob, to remind everybody what they were actually doing, which was deliberately flying a massive passenger aircraft into the ground three times too fast in Mexico. "The worst outcome would be me dying," pointed out JimBob, a man who had survived three plane crashes already. Obviously JimBob and crew would have to abandon the plane at some point - which they excitingly did by parachute out of the rear door - and then the real drama began. The 727 was steered for the last part by two chaps in an airborne Cessna, holding a remote control with one hand and the Cessna's throttle with the other. If the smaller plane were not able to keep up with the Boeing then remote control would fail. The technical term for this, as revealed by one of the Cessna team, was, "Then we're f---ed." Examination of crash-test dummies on board revealed that a passenger who assumed the brace position would have broken a leg, but one who was unbraced might have broken his neck. Another passenger not wearing a seat belt would have "submarined" under the seat in front. And everyone would have been caught up while evacuating in the mass of wiring that emerged from the plane's innards. It transpired that cattle class was best, and usually is. At the back almost everyone would have survived, and suffered forces no greater than a hit in a bumper car. Their undrinkable tea may even have been unspilled. It was all compelling viewing in an extremely old-fashioned televisual way: we were watching something thrilling that had genuinely never been shown before. Bear that in mind the next time some shouty host is claiming a world first because an F-list celebrity is about to eat a plate of nematodes.