One Chicago's Next Mega Crossover Event Could Be The Deadliest Yet, And It's Coming Sooner Than I Expected

Multi-episode crossover events were once an annual tradition for the One Chicago world on NBC, but that changed for a few years due to production complications. After a three-parter in 2025 that was Avengers-esque in the scale of the massive Windy City's gas line explosion that needed heroes from all three shows to contain, the next event in the 2026 TV schedule could be the deadliest yet for Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D., and Chicago Med. And not too many episodes are left before the crossover!

What To Expect From The 2026 Crossover

After the two most recent three-parters involved a gas line explosion last year and (somewhat ironically with the timing) a city-wide contagion in late 2019, TVLine reports that the 2026 movie-length production will kick off with Chicago Fire at a special time, when Firehouse 51 is called to the scene of an airfield in response to a passenger jet going silent while mid-air. According to the logline, their discoveries will crack open "a bigger and deadlier mystery — one with consequences that could ripple far beyond the runway and put countless lives in jeopardy."

Like years past, the three shows will be slightly rearranged for the crossover with Chicago Fire airing at 8 p.m. ET, Chicago Med at 9 p.m. ET, and Chicago P.D. at 10 p.m. ET. It's to be expected that P.D. stays in the latest slot of the night, as the cop drama is generally much darker than Fire and Med, and finishing the investigations into emergencies usually happens at the very end of a three-hour extravaganza. Fans can plan on watching the event on Wednesday, March 4 on NBC.

While March 4 isn't exactly as soon as next Wednesday, it's worth noting that the three shows will presumably be off for the majority of February due to the upcoming 2026 Winter Olympics, which will take place in Milan and Cortina in Italy and kick off with the Opening Ceremony on Friday, February 6.

The games will run through to the Closing Ceremony on Sunday, February 22, with coverage airing on NBC as usual. New One Chicago episodes are scheduled through February 4, with the shows expected to return with the crossover on March 4. So, even though fans have more than a month to wait, there aren't many episodes left coming any sooner than the three-parter in early March.

Why This Could Be The Deadliest Crossover To Date

It's a tall order to suspect this early that any one crossover could be deadlier than others, because One Chicago's crossover crises tend to vary greatly from year to year. The explosion that rocked Wolf Entertainment's version of Chicago in 2025 was very different from the "Infection" three-parter in 2019, and more than one key character had a brush with death before ultimately surviving. Late January is still too early to start guessing about who among the mains will be in the most danger, but a passenger flight going silent could signal a hefty death toll.

For one, Chicago's O'Hare airport is one of the busiest in the entire country, and Midway isn't exactly a tiny regional airport either. That's not to say that I expect One Chicago's crossover to take over one of the real-life airports, but the Windy City is certainly a good place to form a story around a flight emergency. But even normal passenger flights can have around 100 people on board. If the plane crashes, then that would presumably mean the deaths of most people on board, as well as potentially some people on the ground.

Now, I might be getting ahead of myself, since there are surely plenty of reasons why a plane might go silent that don't involve crashing, and a plane crash in Chicago might require the attention of more agencies than CFD, CPD, and local hospitals. Still, if the worst-case scenario of a plane crash happens, the 2026 crossover could become the franchise's deadliest in one fell swoop. And since we have a month of Olympics to watch without seeing Lt. Kidd, Dr. Frost, Officer Atwater, and all the rest back on our screens, we can speculate about the toll as much as we want through the month of February.

For now, though, there are still a few episodes left before the best athletes in the world take over NBC. As always until the March 4 crossover, Chicago Med airs at 8 p.m. ET, Chicago Fire airs at 9 p.m. ET, and Chicago P.D. airs at 10 p.m. ET on NBC's Wednesdays. You can also stream the latest episodes with a Peacock subscription.