EgyptAir flight 804 disappears over the Mediterranean Sea

Year
2016
Month Day
May 19

On May 19, 2016, 66 passengers and crew flying from Cairo to Paris on EgyptAir flight 804 disappeared over the Mediterranean Sea.

It took a month to find the wreckage.

At first the flight was thought to be a casualty of terrorism, but the true cause was revealed the next year. After debate and investigation, French authorities discredited the Egyptian claim that explosive materials were found in the remains, and that a fire had caused the plane to go down.

According to records from the black box, the flight was about 40 minutes from its destination when smoke was detected by onboard fire alarms. Just a minute later, more smoke was reportedly observed in the electronics and computers below the cockpit. The plane then made a 90-degree turn, circled and plummeted, breaking up in midair before crashing into the ocean below.

After the flight went down, investigation teams from several countries searched for the remains. While some of the belongings of passengers and pieces of the plane washed up days later, it wasn’t until June that the full plane was found underwater. While the Egyptian investigation team claimed that explosive materials were found in the wreckage, French investigators countered that there were signs of a fire and a midair break up, not an explosion.

The flight’s disappearance, along with an incident involving a Russian passenger plane being brought down over the Sinai Peninsula just a few months earlier, renewed security concerns and fears of terrorism.

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Germanwings pilot intentionally crashes plane, killing 150 people


Year
2015
Month Day
March 24

On March 24, 2015, the co-pilot of a German airliner deliberately flies the plane into the French Alps, killing himself and the other 149 people onboard. When it crashed, Germanwings flight 9525 had been traveling from Barcelona, Spain, to Dusseldorf, Germany.

The plane took off from Barcelona around 10 a.m. local time and reached its cruising altitude of 38,000 feet at 10:27 a.m. Shortly afterward, the captain, 34-year-old Patrick Sondenheimer, requested that the co-pilot, 27-year-old Andreas Lubitz, take over the controls while he left the cockpit, probably to use the bathroom. At 10:31 a.m. the plane began a rapid descent and 10 minutes later crashed in mountainous terrain near the town of Prads-Haute-Bleone in southern France. There were no survivors. Besides the two pilots, the doomed Airbus A320 was carrying four cabin crew members and 144 passengers from 18 different countries, including three Americans.

Following the crash, investigators determined once the captain had stepped out of the cockpit Lubitz locked the door and wouldn’t let him back in. Sondenheimer could be heard on the plane’s black box voice recorder frantically yelling at his co-pilot and trying to break down the cockpit door. (In the aftermath of 9/11, Lufthansa installed fortified cockpit doors; however, when the Germanwings flight crashed the airline wasn’t required to have two crew members in the cockpit at all times, as U.S. carriers do.) Additionally, the flight data recorder showed Lubitz seemed to have rehearsed his suicide mission during an earlier flight that same day, when he repeatedly set the plane’s altitude dial to just 100 feet while the captain was briefly out of the cockpit. (Because Lubitz quickly reset the controls, his actions went unnoticed during the flight.)

Crash investigators also learned Lubitz had a history of severe depression and in the days before the disaster had searched the Internet for ways to commit suicide as well as for information about cockpit-door security. In 2008, Lubitz, a German native who flew gliders as a teen, entered the pilot-training program for Lufthansa, which owns budget-airliner Germanwings. He took time off from the program in 2009 to undergo treatment for psychological problems but later was readmitted and obtained his commercial pilot’s license in 2012. He started working for Germanwings in 2013. Investigators turned up evidence that in the months leading up to the crash Lubitz had visited a series of doctors for an unknown condition. He reportedly had notes declaring him unfit to work but kept this information from Lufthansa.

Instances of pilots using planes to commit suicide are rare. According to The New York Times, a U.S. Federal Aviation Administration study found that out of 2,758 aviation accidents documented by the FAA from 2003 to 2012, only eight were ruled suicides.

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Pilot Sully Sullenberger performs “Miracle on the Hudson”


Year
2009
Month Day
January 15

On January 15, 2009, a potential disaster turned into a heroic display of skill and composure when Captain Chesley Burnett Sullenberger III safely landed the plane he was piloting on New York City’s Hudson River after a bird strike caused its engines to fail. David Paterson, governor of New York at the time, dubbed the incident the “miracle on the Hudson.” Sullenberger, a former fighter pilot with decades of flying experience, received a slew of honors for his actions, including an invitation to Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration and resolutions of praise from the U.S. Congress.

About a minute after taking off from New York’s La Guardia Airport on January 15, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 collided with one of the aviation industry’s most threatening foes: a flock of geese. Crippled by the bird strike, both engines lost power and went quiet, forcing Captain Sullenberger to make an emergency landing. When air traffic controllers instructed the seasoned pilot to head for nearby Teterboro Airport, he calmly informed them that he was “unable” to reach a runway. “We’re gonna be in the Hudson,” he said simply, and then told the 150 terrified passengers and five crew members on board to brace for impact.

Ninety seconds later, Sullenberger glided the Airbus 320 over the George Washington Bridge and onto the chilly surface of the Hudson River, where it splashed down midway between Manhattan and New Jersey. As flight attendants ushered passengers into life jackets, through emergency exits and onto the waterlogged wings of the bobbing jet, a flotilla of commuter ferries, sightseeing boats and rescue vessels hastened to the scene. One survivor suffered two broken legs and others were treated for minor injuries or hypothermia, but no fatalities occurred. After walking up and down the aisle twice to ensure a complete evacuation, Sullenberger was the last to leave the sinking plane.

In October 2009, the now-famous pilot, known to his friends as “Sully,” published a book about his childhood, military background and career entitled “Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters.” He retired from US Airways after 30 years in the airline industry on March 3, 2010, and has since devoted his time to consulting, public speaking and advocating for aviation safety.

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Boeing 707 crashes into a mountain near Agadir, Morocco

Year
1975
Month Day
August 03

On August 3, 1975, a chartered Boeing 707 jetliner crashes in the Atlas Mountains near Agadir, a coastal city in Morocco. All 188 people aboard the plane were killed, in the fourth worst air disaster to that date.

Owned by the Jordanian airline Alia and chartered to Royal Air Maroc, the 707 left LeBourget Airport in Paris at 2:20 a.m. on the morning of August 3, 1975. Apart from four Europeans, all of the passengers on board were Moroccan citizens who worked in France and were traveling home for their summer holidays. The flight disappeared from Agadir airport-control radar at 4:28 a.m.; an airport official had spoken via radio with the pilot moments earlier, with no hint of trouble. The plane was scheduled to land in Agadir just two minutes later, at 4:30 a.m., and was descending for approach in heavy fog when the right wing tip and one of the engines struck a peak at an altitude of 2,400 feet. The pilot lost control of the plane, which crashed into a ravine, exploded and burned near the small, remote village of Imzizen. All 181 passengers were killed, along with seven crew members.

The incident outside Agadir marked the fourth worst air disaster in history, after a Turkish DC10 that crashed March 3, 1974 north of Paris, killing all 345 passengers and crew; a U.S. military plane that went down outside Saigon on April 4, 1974, killing more than 200; and a chartered Dutch DC8 jetliner that crashed in Sri Lanka on December 4, 1971, killing 191.

The Boeing 707 first went into service in 1958, having been developed to meet the need of airlines (particularly Pan-American) for a trans-Atlantic jetliner with a large seating capacity. With its four engines, the 707 was capable of traveling some 6,000 miles (enough to cross the Atlantic Ocean) nonstop, and boasted a seating capacity of up to 190 people. Thanks to the popularity of the 707 among international airlines, Boeing became world’s biggest aircraft manufacturer, pushing aside rival Douglas Aircraft Company (later the McDonnell Douglas Corporation).

The Morocco crash of August 1975 was the second crash of a Boeing 707 to occur over the course of the 1970s; a Jordanian 707 had crashed at Nigeria’s Kano Airport in January 1973, killing 176 people. In 1978, Boeing ended production of the 707. U.S. airlines sold most of their remaining 707s to Third World carriers, some of them priced as low as $1 million.

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JAL flight 123 crashes into Mount Otsuka

Year
1985
Month Day
August 12

At 6:50 p.m. local time, a Japan Air Lines Boeing 747SR crashes into Mount Otsuka, 70 miles northwest of Tokyo. There were 524 people aboard, and all but four were dead by the time rescuers reached the remote crash site 12 hours later.

JAL flight 123 took off from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport under the command of Captain Takahama at 6:12 p.m. local time. Twelve minutes into the flight, as the jumbo jet was approaching its cruising altitude, an explosion shook the aircraft. A bulkhead had blown in the tail, creating over-pressurization that severed the four sets of hydraulic-control lines and blew part of the tail section off. With a total loss of hydraulic pressure, the captain radioed he was getting no response from his controls. For the next 27 minutes, Takahama attempted unsuccessfully to regain control of the aircraft as it descended uncontrollably in a flight condition known as the “Dutch roll.” At 6:50 p.m., JAL flight 123 crashed into Mount Otsuka at a point 4,780 feet above sea level.

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Jumbo jets collide at Canary Islands airport

Year
1977
Month Day
March 27

On March 27, 1977, two 747 jumbo jets crash into each other on the runway at an airport in the Canary Islands, killing 582 passengers and crew members.

Both Boeing 747s were charter jets that were not supposed to be at the Los Rodeos Airport on Santa Cruz de Tenerife that day. Both had been scheduled to be at the Las Palmas Airport, where a group of militants had set off a small bomb at the airport’s flower shop earlier that day. Thus, a Pan Am charter carrying passengers from Los Angeles and New York to a Mediterranean cruise and a KLM charter with Dutch tourists were both diverted to Santa Cruz on March 27.

The Los Rodeos airport is known for its sudden fog problems and was not a favorite location for pilots. At 4:40 p.m. on a typically foggy afternoon, the KLM jet was cleared to taxi to the end of the single main runway. The Pan Am jet followed behind it and was to wait in side space while the KLM jet turned around to begin takeoff. However, in the fog, the Pan Am pilot was unable to keep the KLM jet in sight and did not move into the proper position. The Dutch crew of the KLM jet, apparently unable to understand the accented English spoken by the flight controllers, began to take off down the runway before the Pan Am jet was able to move to the side space.

At the last minute, the Pan Am pilot saw the other 747 coming straight at his own jet and screamed What’s he doing? He’ll kill us all! while attempting to swerve into a grassy field. It was too late. The KLM 747 slammed into the side of the Pan Am jet and both planes erupted into a huge fireball. The only survivors on either plane were those in the very front of the Pan Am 747. Survivor Lynda Daniel later said of the disaster, It exploded from the back. Most of the people in the first six rows made it.

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Dirigible crash kills 73 in New Jersey

Year
1933
Month Day
April 04

On this day in 1933, a dirigible crashes in New Jersey, killing 73 people in one of the first air disasters in history. The Akron was the largest airship built in the United States when it took its first flight in August 1931. In its short life of less than two years, it was involved in two fatal accidents.

In 1932, the Akron made a flight from New Jersey to the Camp Kearny military base, near San Diego, California. It attempted to land in high winds, with three groups of 30 men each assigned to help pull in the airship and secure it to the ground with ropes. But the Akron, which was filled with helium, began to rise again after the sailors had begun to secure it. Three men held on to their ropes as the Akron rose into the air; two of the three fell from 200 feet and were killed. The third man, Bud Cowart, managed to hold on at the end of the rope for two hours as the Akron dragged him 2,000 feet above the ground. Finally, the crew managed to pull him up into the airship through a porthole.

The second accident involving the Akron occurred on April 4, 1933, while the U.S. Navy was using the airship to obtain some technical data over New Jersey. It was well-known that dirigibles could experience problems in bad weather, but despite the violent thunderstorms in the area that day, the Akron was not grounded. While in the air over the Atlantic Ocean, a miscommunication over directions by crew members sent the Akron directly into the storm instead of around it. The storm’s winds caused the ship to plunge nearly 1,000 feet in a few seconds.

The crew then made its second mistake: the dirigible’s water ballast was dumped in order to make the flying ship rise. However, the ballast dump thrust the Akron up too far, too fast. Critical devices and cables were destroyed and all control was lost. The Akron plunged into the ocean.

The rescue airship J-3 was sent to help the Akron crew. It also crashed in the storm, killing two of the seven crew members on board. Only three of the Akron‘s 76 crew members survived the disaster. One of the survivors was the commander who had ordered the fateful ballast dump.

This was the deadliest air disaster since the crash of the first rigid airship built in the United States, the Shenandoah, which killed 14 people on September 3, 1925.

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Plane crashes on Canary Islands, killing 146

Year
1980
Month Day
April 25

A Dan-Air Boeing 727 carrying British tourists to the Canary Islands crashes and kills all 146 on board on April 25, 1980. This terrible crash came just three years after another even deadlier accident at the Canary Islands airport.

In 1977, a KLM jumbo jet had collided with a Pan Am plane on the runway; 570 people were killed. The collision occurred when communication problems between the planes and air-traffic controllers exacerbated already dangerous foggy conditions. The heavily accented English spoken by the Spanish-speaking air traffic controllers was partly to blame.

On April 25, 1980, similar problems at the same airport had tragic results. It was late morning and cloudy when a chartered jet arrived from Manchester, England. The plane was carrying 138 passengers, bound for the beaches of Tenerife, and 8 crew members. Inaccurate navigation by the pilots set the tragedy in motion; they told the air traffic controllers that they were a mile east of their actual position.

The airport did not have radar capabilities at the time and cleared the plane to descend to 6,000 feet and wait to be assigned a landing area. Over the next critical moments, the plane’s crew and the air traffic controllers had difficulty communicating regarding the plane’s location and how they should proceed. Finally, the pilot, confused by an order he had been given by the air-traffic controllers, turned the plane directly toward the mountains on the small island.

Due to the intensely cloudy conditions, the pilots never saw the mountain directly in front of them. All 146 people were killed on impact when the jet crashed directly into the side of a mountain.

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