How many seasons of Mayday are there?

Mayday has aired 26 seasons so far.

How many episodes of Mayday are there?

There are 240 episodes of Mayday across 26 seasons.

Mayday was created by André Barro and Bernard Vaillot.

Where can I watch Mayday?

Mayday is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video, fuboTV, Peacock Premium, YouTube TV, Philo, Amazon Prime Video with Ads, Peacock Premium Plus and Amazon Video.

What is Mayday's IMDb rating?

Mayday holds an IMDb rating of 8.8/10 from 6,603 votes.

Documentary

When Does Mayday Season 27 Come Out? Is It Renewed?

Mayday Season 27 doesn't have an official release date yet. Based on the roughly 12-month gap between previous seasons, expect it around February 2027.

IMDb

8.8/10

Seasons

Episodes

240

Diagnostics

Network: 5
Genres: Documentary, Drama, Crime
First aired: 2003-09-03
Last aired: 2026-04-06
Runtime: 46 min
Rated: TV-14

Awards 3 wins & 6 nominations total

Search interestRising ↗

Predictive Logic Analysis

Twenty-six seasons and 240 episodes over more than two decades is about as strong a track record as a factual series can have. Mayday has survived format changes, shifting documentary markets, and the rise of streaming, and it keeps getting renewed. Channel 5 and its international partners (particularly Smithsonian Channel and Corus in Canada, where the show is co-produced) have consistently recommissioned it because the format is cost-effective, the subject matter generates reliable search interest, and there is always new aviation accident material to cover. Nothing in the available data suggests that pattern is about to break.

The one soft signal here is the episode-rating trajectory. Season 26 averages 7.8 on IMDb, down from 8.0 the prior season, and ratings have been falling across the season. That is worth noting, but it needs context: the show's overall IMDb score sits at 8.8, which is genuinely high for a long-running documentary. A small within-season drift is not unusual for a series this mature and does not carry much weight against 23 years of continuous production. Search interest is at 86/100 and rising, Trakt active watchers are near 9,000 and steady, which together indicate a healthy and engaged audience. The only mild negative is the Wikipedia pageview trend falling, but that is a thin signal given the other data. The other coverage article is about an entirely unrelated Apple TV film called Mayday starring Ryan Reynolds and is irrelevant to this show's renewal prospects.

What is Mayday about?

Mayday has been reconstructing aviation disasters on television since 2003, and after more than two decades and 240 episodes it remains one of the most methodical, unglamorous, and oddly riveting things on television. The premise is simple: take a real crash, piece together what happened from cockpit voice recorders, ATC transcripts, survivor accounts, and expert testimony, then dramatize it with actors and CGI. There is no mystery format, no villain, often no single person to blame. Just physics, human error, institutional failure, and terrible luck, sometimes all at once.

What makes the show work, and keeps working after all this time, is its refusal to sensationalize. The reconstructions are low-budget by prestige television standards, but that restraint actually suits the material. You are not watching a thriller. You are watching an investigation. The pacing is deliberate, the narration dry and informative, and the experts interviewed are actual investigators and engineers who speak in technical language the show does its best to translate. It can feel like a classroom at times. That is not a complaint.

Audiences have responded warmly, with an IMDb rating of 8.8 across a substantial number of votes, which suggests genuine loyalty rather than a cult blip. Critics have been less vocal about it, in the way that critics tend to ignore long-running factual television that simply does its job well. It is not a prestige documentary. It does not have a cinematic style or a political thesis. What it has is rigor.

The show's most consistent effect is making you understand things you thought you already understood. Most people assume crashes happen because of obvious catastrophic failure. Mayday keeps demonstrating, episode after episode, that they usually happen because several small, defensible decisions lined up in exactly the wrong sequence. That finding stays with you, and it is what keeps the show from being merely morbid.

Created by André Barro, Bernard Vaillot

Themes

disasterairplane accidentairplane wreckairplane crashcrash landingexploding airplanemaydayplane crashapprovingplane crashes

Is Mayday renewed or cancelled?

Working toward renewal

high

26 seasons and 240 episodes across 23 years with no cancellation in its history

high

IMDb rating of 8.8 across 6,603 votes indicates strong and sustained audience appreciation

medium

Cost-effective documentary format with ongoing source material (aviation accidents) makes renewal low-risk for broadcasters

medium

Rising search interest (86/100) and ~8,700 steady Trakt active watchers indicate continued audience engagement

Working against it

medium

Season 26 episode ratings falling within the season (7.8 average vs 8.0 prior season)

medium

No formal renewal announcement or trade coverage confirming a future season

low

Wikipedia pageview trend falling, a mild sign of softening casual interest

Mayday Season 27 Release Date

Mayday typically produces new seasons on a roughly annual cycle, with episodes sometimes released in batches across different international broadcasters at slightly different times. Season 26 only finished airing in April 2026, so a season 27 announcement or production start would not be expected for several months yet. If the usual rhythm holds, new episodes would most likely arrive in late 2026 or early 2027. There is no confirmed date or announcement at this point, so that window is an estimate based on historical release cadence rather than any confirmed production news.