(
)

It’s not the first time someone thought it’d be cool to crash an airliner on TV.

But on Friday, the Discovery channel finally succeeded in plunging a 727 jet loaded with cameras and crash dummies into the desert to see what happens when a jumbo jet goes down.

Fox proposed the same stunt in the summer of 1999 and ignited a huge controversy before the whole thing was nixed by the Federal Aviation Administration.

“Jumbo Jet Crash Live: The Ultimate Safety Test,” set to be hosted by talk-show host Maury Povich, would have shown a jetliner without passengers crash in an uninhabited area of the Mojave Desert in California after the pilots bailed out.

“There is a 95 percent chance that the plane will explode when it crashes,” the head of reality programming for Fox, Mike Darnell, said back then. “If this works, maybe we will make it an annual event.”

The special died a few months later when the producers could not get FAA approval.

Flash forward 12 years.

Yesterday, Discovery released photos of the crash of a 170-seat 727 in a remote Mexican desert in Baja.

The pilot parachuted out of the plane “minutes before the crash” and the aircraft was guided down by remote control from a plane following, network said.

The photos show the front half of the aircraft shorn off but the back half almost wholly intact.

“The project aims to recreate a serious, but survivable, passenger jet crash landing with a real aircraft in order to allow an international team of experts to study the crashworthiness of the aircraft’s airframe and cabin as well as the impact of crashes on the human body,” the network said in its press release.

Before the crash, a “security zone” was cleared around the intended site by the Mexican police, military and private security, it said.

There was no word on what the project cost, but out-of-date 727s can go for as little as $2 million dollars, according to experts.

The footage, recorded inside the aircraft at the moment of impact and afterward, will be the first episode of a new series this fall called “Curiosity,” officials said.