Controlling the Skies

Every day more than ninety thousand commercial flights take off around the world. Ninety thousand flights that need to be safely flown and guided from take-off to landing through every kind of weather. We all know the role of the pilots in air travel, but how many of us know anything about air traffic control?

And yet, their job is one of the most stressful in the world, their responsibility is huge. Every minute of every day air controllers hold the lives of thousands in their hands. They work in places that the public never visits.

At the heart of major control centres, this documentary will follow an Air France flight from take-off at New York's JFK - the world's busiest airspace - to its landing in Paris' Roissy Charles de Gaulle - Europe's second busiest airport. An exclusive in-depth investigation into the wild and secret world of the heroes of the air.