Closed captioned for the hearing impaired.

Episode of the television program American Experience.

Narrator, Joe Morton.

The Super Outbreak of 1974 was the most intense tornado outbreak on record, tearing across thirteen states, generating 148 tornadoes from Alabama to Ontario, damaging thousands of homes, and killing more than 300 people. Meteorologist Tetsuya Theodore "Ted" Fujita spent ten months studying the outbreak's aftermath in the most extensive aerial tornado study ever conducted, and through detailed mapping and leaps of scientific imagination, made a series of meteorological breakthroughs. His discovery of "microbursts," sudden high wind patterns that could cause airplanes to drop from the sky without warning, transformed aviation safety.