Professor Cynthia Bir admits purposely crashing a full-size passenger plane - in the name of science - was pretty awesome. In the Bloomfield-Bloomfield Hills Patch article, Bir said: "This was probably the most fun and the coolest project to be able to be part of not only because of the production value (of the show) but to actually end up with real science was very exciting," said Bir, a professor of biomedical engineering at Wayne State University. Bir was part of a landmark experiment that for the first time, recorded what exactly happens in a catastrophic plane crash. Bir joined a team of international experts from multiple scientific fields to explore what really happens as a plane goes down, how to increase a passenger's odds of survival, and to better understand what, until now, has been virtually undocumented. As a scientist, she said it doesn't get much better than that.

http://bloomfield-mi.patch.com/articles/wayne-state-s-cynthia-bir-helps-crash-a-plane-for-discovery-channel
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/showtracker/la-et-st-discovery-crashes-727-for-season-premiere-of-curiosity-20121003,0,6903213.story