Telly Today: Two tales of airline disasters

TV Highlights for Saturday, December 2nd…

The story continues with the international race to build the world’s first supersonic airliner in the second of this two-part documentary series.

This is the story of how geniuses and spies gave birth to an entirely new kind of aeroplane. In the concluding episode, the Anglo-French Concorde goes nose to nose with its Soviet competitor, but the archive files reveal how the latter project ends in tragedy and death.

The programme uncovers how America’s giant homegrown competitor is felled not by technology but by the moonshot and money.

Secret archives from a Russian defector expose previously unnamed spies at the heart of the Concorde project. But ultimately only one supersonic plane survives. But does this really mean that the Anglo-French Concorde wins?

With a worldwide ban on supersonic flights over land, people pile on to Jumbo jets as Concorde finds itself as not so much the vanguard of a new age but a plaything for the rich and glamorous. For two decades, Concorde fulfils a version of a supersonic dream until it is struck down by a tragic accident.

In 2003, Concorde took its final flight. Will we ever see the like again?

Sky Arts, 8 pm

Strictly head to the musicals this week with one unexpected celebrity contestant less, as Nigel Harman has had to pull out due to injury. Harman and his professional partner Katya Jones had been due to dance a Charleston to Step in Time from Disney’s Mary Poppins in the musical-themed quarterfinal. The show’s Instagram page wished him a “speedy recovery” and said the couple would be “missed by the entire Strictly family”.

Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman host tonight’s quarter-final, which opens with a group routine by the professional dancers inspired by My Fair Lady. The remaining contestants Bobby Brazier, Annabel Croft, Ellie Leach and Layton Williams take to the ballroom floor with performances inspired by the world of musical theatre, hoping to impress the viewers and judges and secure their place in next week’s semi-final.

BBC One,7.25 pm

In the search for the next singing sensation Anne-Marie, Olly Murs, Sir Tom Jones and will.i.am have once again assumed their roles as the superstar Coaches and returned to their seats in the most iconic chairs on television.

Tonight Emma Willis presides over all of the action as in this outing, the fifth of the series, with spaces on teams filling up during the Blind Auditions, the auditionees must make the coaches turn their chairs to stand a chance of winning a recording contract.

ITV1 and STV at 7.55 pm

In the second episode of the four-part series investigators uncover a key piece of forensic evidence – a fragment of a Toshiba radio that points to an Iran-backed Palestinian terror cell.

Meanwhile, Miami-based Victoria Cummock, who lost her husband on the flight, longs to have his personal effects returned. His clothes are unexpectedly sent back to her, tenderly washed and ironed by a group of volunteers in Lockerbie. Further clues take FBI investigator Phil Reid to Malta, a Mediterranean island near the rogue state of Libya. Libya’s leader, Colonel Gaddafi, has a motive for the attack – the American bombing of his capital in 1986 and a hatred of American President Ronald Reagan.

As two Libyan suspects fall into Phil’s sights, investigators trace the maker of the bomb timer, a Swiss electronics expert called Edwin Bollier, who says he sold a batch of timers to Libya several years earlier.

Following CIA cooperation Phil believes he has traced the two bombers: Lamin Fhima and Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, a Libyan Arab Airlines manager and a Libyan intelligence officer. His theory is that they conspired to put the bomb on Pan Am 103 via a connecting flight from Malta. His theory is strengthened when Bollier reveals he rented an office to al-Megrahi…

Sky Showcase and Sky Documentaries at 9 pm