Impact (2002 British TV series)

Impact (also titled *Tin Kickers*) is a two-part British TV miniseries that Matthew Graham and Nigel McCrery wrote and created. It was scheduled to air on ITV in January 2002. The show stars Hugh Bonneville, Iain Glen, and Sarah Parish, and centers on an air accident investigation team probing the midair explosion of a passenger jet over rural England. Filming took place over three weeks from 27 August to 17 September 2001, mostly on the Isle of Man, with additional work in Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire. Because its subject matter was considered too sensitive after the 11 September 2001 attacks, the series never aired on British television. It first broadcast in Germany on 12 November 2003 as a single feature-length film under the title *Der mysteriöse Passagier*, and later aired in France in 2007. The series has never been released on DVD.

**Plot** Chief air crash investigator Marcus Hodge (Iain Glen) leads a team from the Air Accident Investigation Bureau, including Gaynor Crosswell (Sarah Parish) and Phil Epson (Hugh Bonneville), to examine the crash of Atlas Air Flight 231, which explodes over rural England. All 280 passengers die, along with several civilians on the ground. Marcus sifts through wreckage—"tin kicking"—for clues about the explosion. Under pressure from the public and the airline to label it terrorism, the investigators work methodically to uncover the truth. Marcus soon finds that a bomb smuggled aboard caused the blast.

Just before the crash, Marcus was at the airport awaiting his 15-year-old daughter Angel, whom he had not seen since leaving his wife twelve years earlier. She had contacted him and planned to visit, arriving on Flight 231. When he gets the passenger list, he is relieved her name is missing. But in the wreckage, he discovers a small souvenir he gave her twelve years ago. He learns she traveled on a false passport and was actually on board. Suspicion grows that Angel was involved in the explosion, forcing Marcus to prove her innocence while contending with time, the anger of victims’ relatives, and public pressure.

**Cast** Iain Glen as Marcus Hodge Hugh Bonneville as Phil Epson Sarah Parish as Gaynor Crosswell Lee Ingleby as Peter Stamford Dean Lennox Kelly as Scott Corey Johnson as Byron Betsy Brantley as Diane Cousins George A.