The first fatal aviation accident occurred in a Wright Model A aircraft at Fort Myer, Virginia, USA, on 17 September 1908, resulting in injury to the pilot, Orville Wright and death of the passenger, Signal Corps Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge.
An aviation incident is defined as an occurrence, other than an accident, associated with the operation of an aircraft that affects or could affect the safety of operations.
An accident in which the damage to the aircraft is such that it must be written off, or in which the plane is destroyed is called a hull loss accident.
MAJOR DISASTERS
September 11 terror attacks:
The deadliest aviation-related disaster of any kind, considering fatalities on both the aircraft and the ground, was the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City on 11 September 2001, with the intentional crashing of American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175. The World Trade Center crashes killed 2,752, most of them occupants of the World Trade Center towers or emergency personnel responding to the disaster. In addition, 189 were killed when American Airlines Flight 77 was crashed into the Pentagon and 44 were killed when United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a Pennsylvania field, bringing the total number of casualties of the September 11 attacks to 2,977 (excluding the 19 terrorist hijackers). Being deliberate terrorist acts, the 9/11 crashes were not classified as accidents, but as mass murder-suicide, and subsequently treated by the United States and the member nations of NATO as an act of war and also terrorism.
Tenerife:
Artist's depiction of the Tenerife Disaster, which destroyed two Boeing 747 aircraft.
The 27 March 1977, Tenerife disaster remains the accident with the highest number of airliner passenger fatalities. Five hundred and eighty-three people died when a KLM Boeing 747 attempted take-off without clearance, and collided with a taxiing Pan Am 747 at Los Rodeos Airport on the island of Tenerife, Spain. Pilot error was the primary cause of this catastrophe.
JAL Flight 123:
The crash of Japan Airlines Flight 123 in 1985 is the single-aircraft disaster with the highest number of fatalities. In this crash, 520 died on board a Boeing 747. The aircraft suffered an explosive decompression from an incorrectly repaired aft pressure bulkhead, which failed in mid flight and destroyed most of its vertical stabilizer, and severed all of the hydraulic lines, making the 747 virtually uncontrollable. The pilots were able to keep the plane flying for several minutes before crashing into a mountain. Remarkably, several people survived the impact, but by the time the rescue teams got to the crash site, the majority had succumbed to their injuries.
Other crashes with high death tolls:
- The world's deadliest mid-air collision was the 1996 Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision involving Saudia Flight 763 and Air Kazakhstan Flight 1907 over Haryana, India. The crash was mainly the result of the Kazakh pilot flying lower than the altitude for which his aircraft was given clearance. All 349 passengers and crew on board the two aircraft died. The Ramesh Chandra Lahoti Commission, empowered to study the causes, also recommended the creation of "air corridors" to prevent aircraft from flying in opposite directions at the same altitude. The Civil Aviation Authorities in India made it mandatory for all aircraft flying in and out of India to be equipped with an ACAS (Airborne Collision Avoidance System). This was the first time in the world that ACAS was mandatory.
- On 3 March 1974, Turkish Airlines Flight 981, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10, crashed in a forest northeast of Paris, France. The London-bound plane crashed shortly after taking off from Orly airport. All 346 people on board died. It was later determined that the cargo door had detached which caused an explosive decompression which in turn caused the floor just above to collapse. When the floor collapsed it severed the control cables, which left the pilots without control of the elevators, the rudder and the No. 2 engine. The plane entered a steep dive and crashed. It was the deadliest plane crash of all time until the Tenerife disaster in 1977.
- On 23 June 1985, Air India Flight 182 Boeing 747-237B crashed off the southwest coast of Ireland when a bomb exploded in the cargo hold. All 307 passengers and 22 crew members died. One passenger had checked in as "M. Singh". He did not board the flight, but his suitcase which contained the bomb was loaded onto the plane. "Mr Singh" was never identified and captured. It was later found out that Sikh extremists were behind the bombing and that it was a retaliation for the Indian government's attack on the sacred Golden Temple in the city of Amritsar, which is very important for the Sikhs. This was, at the time, the deadliest terrorist attack involving an airplane.
- 12 December 1985: An Arrow Air DC-8, Arrow Air Flight 1285, carrying American military personnel on a charter flight home for Christmas, crashed in Newfoundland, killing all 248 passengers and 8 crew members. The Canadian Aviation Safety Board investigating the cause of the crash issued two different reports. The majority report believed that ice on the wings caused the crash. And the minority report believed an explosion was the likely cause of the crash. This crash is still the worst air disaster in both US military and Canadian aviation history.
- Iran Air Flight 655 was an Iranian civilian airliner shot down by two surface-to-air missiles from the U.S. Navy's guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes on Sunday, 3 July 1988, over the Strait of Hormuz, killing all 290 passengers and crew aboard, ranking it seventh among the deadliest airline disasters.
- On 25 May 1979, American Airlines Flight 191, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10, lost control and crashed near O'Hare International Airport in Des Plaines, Illinois, following improper maintenance and the loss of an engine. The crash killed all 271 passengers and crew on board, as well as two people on the ground. It remains the deadliest commercial aircraft accident in the United States history, and was also the country's deadliest aviation disaster until the September 11 attacks in 2001.
- On 1 September 1983, a Soviet interceptor Sukhoi Su-15 shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 after it flew into Soviet airspace, killing all 269 passengers and crew.
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- On 12 November 2001, American Airlines Flight 587, an Airbus A300, crashed in the Belle Harbor neighborhood of Queens, New York, just after departing John F. Kennedy International Airport due to the first officer's overuse of the rudder in response to wake turbulence from a Japan Airlines 747. The crash killed all 260 people on board, as well as five people on the ground. It is the second-deadliest aviation accident on U.S. soil, after American Airlines Flight 191.
- Pan Am Flight 103 was a Boeing 747-121 that was destroyed by a terrorist bomb over the town of Lockerbie, Scotland, on 21 December 1988. The crash killed all 243 passengers and 16 crew and 11 people on the ground (all of whom were residents of Sherwood Crescent, Lockerbie), making it the worst terrorist attack involving an aircraft in the UK. It remains the deadliest terrorist attack on British soil. Following the crash, the Federal Aviation Administration imposed new security measures on American airlines that fly out of 103 airports in Western Europe and the Middle East.
- On 2 September 1998, Swissair Flight 111 crashed into St. Margaret's Bay, not far from Halifax, Nova Scotia, killing all 229 people on board. A fire had broken out in the cockpit and the plane disintegrated upon impact with the water.
- On 26 May 1991, Lauda Air Flight 004, a Boeing 767-3Z9ER named "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart," crashed in Thailand shortly after take-off from Bangkok due to the un-commanded deployment of one of its thrust reversers, with the loss of all 223 passengers and crew aboard the 767.
- On 31 October 1999, at around 01:50 EST, EgyptAir Flight 990 (MSR990) crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, about 60 miles (97 km) south of Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, in international waters, killing all 217 people on board. The National Transportation Safety Board report concluded that the pilot intentionally dove the aircraft into the ocean; Egyptian authorities have vigorously denied this conclusion, saying that a mechanical failure was to blame.
SAFETY
Aviation safety has improved considerably in over one hundred years of implementation. In modern times, two major manufacturers still produce heavy passenger aircraft for the civilian market: Boeing in the United States of America and the European company Airbus. Both have placed huge emphasis on the use of aviation safety equipment, now a billion-dollar industry in its own right, and made safety a major selling point—realizing that a poor safety record in the aviation industry is a threat to corporate survival. Some major safety devices now required in commercial aircraft involve:
- Evacuation slides — aid rapid passenger exit from an aircraft in an emergency situation.
- Advanced avionics - Computerized auto-recovery and alert systems.
- Turbine engines - durability and failure containment improvements.
- Landing gear - that can be lowered even after loss of power and hydraulics.
When measured on a passenger-distance calculation, air travel is the safest form of transportation available: these figures are the ones mentioned by the air industry when quoting statistics on air safety. A typical statement is this one by the BBC: "UK airline operations are among the safest anywhere. When compared against all other modes of transport on a fatality per mile basis air transport is the safest — six times safer than traveling by car and twice as safe as rail.
However, when measured by fatalities per person transported, uses are the safest form of transportation and the number of air travel fatalities per person are surpassed only by bicycles and motorcycles. This statistic is the one used by the insurance industry when calculating insurance rates for air travel.
For every billion kilometers traveled, trains have a fatality rate 12 times larger than air travel, while automobiles have a fatality rate 62 times larger. On the other hand, for every billion journeys, buses are the safest form of transportation. By the last measure, air transportation is three times more dangerous than car transportation and almost 30 times more dangerous than bus.
After the crash of Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907, Brazilian Air Force personnel recover the flight data recorder of the flight.
A 2007 study by Popular Mechanics found that passengers sitting at the back of a plane are 40% more likely to survive a crash than those sitting in the front, although this article also quotes Boeing, the FAA and a website on aircraft safety, all claiming that there is no safest seat. The article studied 20 crashes, not taking in account the developments in safety after those accidents.[34] However, a flight data recorder is usually mounted in the aircraft's empennage (tail section), where it is more likely to survive a severe crash.
Over 95% of people in U.S. plane crashes between 1983 and 2000 survived.
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Maani Sharma [ MBA Aviation ]
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Those are such scary scenarios I would never wish to happen. I wonder how the victims of such incident acquires justice. airline attorney
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