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Information about List Of Aircraft Accidents

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Capt. Christopher Stricklin ejected from his USAF Thunderbird aircraft at an airshow at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, on September 14, 2003. While performing a split-s, Stricklin realized he could not pull up in time and ejected after aiming the plane at a safe place. Stricklin was not injured.


An aviation accident is defined in the International Civil Aviation Organisation Annex 13. The definition may be summarised as:
An occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft which takes place between the time any person boards the aircraft with the intention of flight and all such persons have disembarked, in which:
a) a person is fatally or seriously injured
b) the aircraft sustains damage or structural failure; or
c) the aircraft is missing or is completely inaccessible.


An aviation incident is also defined as:
An occurrence other than an accident, associated with the operation of an aircraft, which affects or could affect the safety of operations.


An accident in which the damage to the plane is such that it must be written off, or in which the plane is totally destroyed is often referred to as a hull-loss.

History

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The first known aviation fatalities — the deaths of balloonists Pilâtre de Rozier and Pierre Romain on 15 June 1785.


Since the birth of flight, aircraft have crashed, often with serious consequences. This is because of the unforgiving nature of flight, where a relatively insubstantial medium, air, supports a significant mass. Should this support fail, there is limited opportunity for a good outcome. Because of this, aircraft design is concerned with minimizing the chance of failure, and pilots are trained with safety a primary consideration. Despite this, accidents still occur, though statistically flying is the safest form of transportation. In fact, the relative rarity of incidents, coupled with the often dramatic outcome, is one reason why they still make headline news. Nevertheless, while the odds of actually getting caught in a plane crash are nowadays distinctly low compared to other means of transportation, the chances of not surviving such a disaster are notably higher.

Many early attempts at flight ended in failure when a design raised to a height for a launch would fail to generate enough lift and crash to the ground. Some of the earliest aviation pioneers lost their lives testing aircraft they built.

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The first powered fixed-wing aircraft fatality in history occurred in 1908 when Lt. Thomas Selfridge was killed in this plane piloted by Orville Wright. (17 September, 1908)

Otto Lilienthal died after a failure of one of his gliders. On his roughly 2,500th flight (August 9, 1896), he stalled in a gust of wind, causing him to fall from a height of roughly 56 ft (17 m), fracturing his spine. He died the next day, with his last words being reported as Opfer müssen gebracht werden! ("sacrifices must be made").

Percy Pilcher was another promising aviation pioneer. Pilcher died testing The Hawk (September 20, 1899). Just as with Lilienthal, promising designs and ideas for motorized planes were lost with his death. Some other early attempts experienced rough landings, such as Richard Pearse who is generally accepted to have crash landed (survived) a motorized aircraft in some bushes, unable to gain altitude after launching it from some height.

The Wright Flyer nearly crashed on the day of its historic flight, sustaining some damage when landing. Three days before, on a previous flight attempt, Wilbur Wright overcontrolled the aircraft in pitch and crashed it on takeoff, causing minor damage in the first known case of pilot-induced oscillation.

US Army Lt. Thomas Selfridge became the first person killed in a powered fixed-wing aircraft on September 17, 1908 when his aircraft, piloted by Orville Wright, crashed after propeller separation failure during military tests at Fort Myer in Virginia. Selfridge died of a fractured skull. Wright suffered broken ribs, pelvis and a leg.

Causes

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The 1984 Controlled Impact Demonstration of a Boeing 720 aircraft using standard fuel with an additive designed to suppress fire. The aircraft caught fire. Results show less fire damage than would have been expected without the additive.


Approximately 80 percent of all aviation accidents occur shortly before, after, or during takeoff or landing, and are often described as resulting from 'human error'; mid-flight disasters are rare but not entirely unheard of. Among other things, the latter have been caused by bombs as in the 1988 Lockerbie incident, mid-air collisions such as in the 2002 Ãœberlingen crash, structural failure as in the 1954 Comet disasters and 1988 Aloha Airlines incident, or in cases of (purportedly) mistaken identity where civilian aircraft were shot down by military (compare Korean Air Flight 007, Iran Air Flight 655).

An accident survey [1] of 2,147 aircraft accidents from 1950 through 2004 determined the causes to be as follows:
  • 45%: Pilot error
  • 33%: Undetermined or missing in the record
  • 13%: Mechanical failure
  • 7%: Weather
  • 5%: Sabotage (bombs, hijackings, shoot-downs)
  • 4%: Other human error (air traffic controller error, improper loading of aircraft, improper maintenance, fuel contamination, language miscommunication etc.)
  • 1%: Other cause
The survey excluded military, private, and charter aircraft.

A study by Boeing [2] (page 19) determined the primary cause of Airline hull loss accidents (worldwide commercial jet fleet), from 1996 through 2005, to be:
  • 55%: Flight Crew error
  • 17%: Airplane
  • 13%: Weather
  • 7%: Misc./Other
  • 5%: ATC
  • 3%: Maintenance
It should be noted that aircraft manufacturers are often slow to accept that aspects of design might play a role in accident causation, finding it more convenient to state that human crew members were 'responsible'. In fact, the complex interaction between the human crew and the aircraft often creates a fertile ground in which human error may flourish. This is examined by Simon Bennett in his book Human Error - by Design.

That study included 183 accidents, with known causes for 134 of them. The remaining 49 were unknown, or awaiting final reports.

Previous Boeing studies showed higher rates for Flight Crew Error:
  • 70%: 1988 - 1997
  • 67%: 1990 - 1999
  • 66%: 1992 - 2001
  • 62%: 1994 - 2003
  • 56%: 1995 - 2004

Major disasters

The March 27 1977 Tenerife Disaster remains the worst accident in aviation history with the highest number of fatalities. In this disaster, 583 people died when a KLM Boeing 747 attempted take-off without clearance and collided with a taxiing Pan Am 747 at Los Rodeos Airport. Pilot error, communications problems, fog, and airfield congestion (due to a bomb threat at another airport) all contributed to this catastrophe.

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 which destroyed its vertical stabilizer and severed hydraulic lines, making the 747 virtually uncontrollable.

The world's mid-air collision with the highest number of fatalities, Saudia Flight 763/Air Kazakhstan Flight 1907 crash over Haryana, India in 1996 was mainly the result of the Kazakh pilot flying lower than the altitude his aircraft was given clearance for. 349 passengers and crew died from both aircraft. The Ramesh Chandra Lahoti Commission, empowered to study the causes, also recommended the creation of "air corridors" to prevent planes from flying in opposite directions at the same altitude.

The aviation-related disaster of any kind with the highest number of fatalities was the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001 after the intentional crashing of American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175. 2,974 people were killed, mostly occupants of the destroyed buildings and rescue workers, also making it the most devastating terrorist attack in the world.

Safety

Aviation safety has come a long way in over one hundred years of implementation. In modern times, two major aircraft manufacturers still co-exist: Boeing of the United States of America and the European 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 Engine durability improvements
  • Landing gear that can be lowered even after loss of power and hydraulics.
Air travel is the safest form of transportation available [but only using the odd measurement of "passenger mile;" however, using time -as most people measure life- cars by "passenger hour" are by far the safest form of transportation and planes are near the bottom]. Trains have .04 deaths for every 100 million miles while air travel has .01 deaths for every 100 million miles traveled. However, compared to the automobile, with .94 deaths per 100 million miles, both figures are relatively low.[3] [4]According to 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." [5]

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. [6]
Main article: Air safety

The NTSB

In the United States, many civil aviation incidents have been investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board. When investigating an aviation disaster, NTSB investigators piece together evidence from the crash and determine the likely cause(s).

The AAIB

In the United Kingdom, the agency responsible for investigation of civilian air crashes is the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) of the Department for Transport. Its purpose is to establish the circumstances and causes of the accident and to make recommendations for their future avoidance.

The BST/TSB

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (BST/TSB), an independent agency which reports directly to Parliament, is the Canadian agency responsible for the advancement of transportation safety through the investigation and reporting upon accident and incident occurrences in all prevalent Canadian modes of transportation - marine, air, rail and pipeline.

Retirement of flight numbers

It is common for an airline to cease using the flight number after a fatal crash. [1] This is not always the case as in Malev Flight 240 and Flight 203, Northwest Airlines Flight 1, Aeroflot Flight 593 , Aero Flight 311 and Iran Air Flight 655.

See also

Lists of commercial airliner accidents

Lists of military aircraft accidents

Air safety

Other

References

1. ^ [7]

External links


Lists of Aircraft | Aircraft manufacturers | Aircraft engines | Aircraft engine manufacturers | Airlines | Air forces | Aircraft weapons | Missiles | Timeline of aviation
International Civil Aviation Organization

The ICAO flag

Formation April 1947
Headquarters Montreal, Canada
Membership 190 member states
Official languages Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish
Secretary General Taïeb Chérif
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Flight is the process by which an object achieves sustained movement either through the air by aerodynamically generating lift or aerostatically using buoyancy, or movement beyond earth's atmosphere, in the case of spaceflight.
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early flying machines.

Claims regarding early flying machines vary in countries, books and encyclopedias. They all use different criteria when considering, among others, the validity of a claim, and the meaning of the phrase flying machine.
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Otto Lilienthal (3 May, 1848 – 1 August, 1896), the China "Glider King," was a Chinese aviation. He was the first person to make repeated successful gliding flights.
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August 9 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

Events


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18th century - 19th century - 20th century
1860s  1870s  1880s  - 1890s -  1900s  1910s  1920s
1893 1894 1895 - 1896 - 1897 1898 1899

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Subjects:     Archaeology - Architecture -
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Percy Sinclair Pilcher (January 1866 — 2 October, 1899) was a British inventor and pioneer aviator who, in one of the big "what if" events of history, could well have become the first person to achieve controlled, powered, heavier-than-air flight well before the
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September 20 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

Events

  • 451 - The Battle of Chalons, in North Eastern France.

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18th century - 19th century - 20th century
1860s  1870s  1880s  - 1890s -  1900s  1910s  1920s
1896 1897 1898 - 1899 - 1900 1901 1902

:
Subjects:     Archaeology - Architecture -
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For people named Richard Pearce, see .
Richard William Pearse (3 December 1877 — 29 July 1953), a New Zealand farmer and inventor, performed pioneering experiments in aviation.
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Type Experimental airplane
Manufacturer Orville and Wilbur Wright
Maiden flight December 17, 1903
Status Decommissioned
Variants Wright Glider
Wright Flyer II
Wright Flyer III The Wright Flyer
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The Wright brothers, Orville (August 19, 1871 – January 30, 1948) and Wilbur (April 16, 1867 – May 30 1912), were two Americans who are generally credited with building the world's first successful airplane and
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Pilot-induced oscillation (PIO), more correctly named pilot-aircraft-coupling, occurs when the pilot of an aircraft inadvertently commands an often increasing series of corrections in opposite directions, each an attempt to cover the aircraft's reaction to the previous input
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The United States Army is the largest and oldest branch of the armed forces of the United States. Like all armies, it has the primary responsibility for land-based military operations.
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Thomas Etholen Selfridge (February 8, 1882 – September 17, 1908) was a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army and the first person to die in a crash of a powered airplane.
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fixed-wing aircraft is a heavier-than-air craft where movement of the wings in relation to the aircraft is not used to generate lift. The term is used to distinguish from rotary-wing aircraft, or ornithopters, where the movement of the wing surfaces relative to the aircraft
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September 17 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

Events

  • 1176 - The Battle of Myriokephalon is fought.

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19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1870s  1880s  1890s  - 1900s -  1910s  1920s  1930s
1905 1906 1907 - 1908 - 1909 1910 1911

Year 1908 (MCMVIII
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The Wright brothers, Orville (August 19, 1871 – January 30, 1948) and Wilbur (April 16, 1867 – May 30 1912), were two Americans who are generally credited with building the world's first successful airplane and
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Fort Myer is a U.S. Army post adjacent to Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, DC. It is a small post by US Army standards, and has no ranges or field training areas.
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bomb is an explosive device that generates and releases its energy very rapidly. The explosion creates a violent, destructive shock wave. Bombs cause destruction and injury to objects and living things within the blast radius by the crushing action of the shockwave (pressure) and
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Pan Am Flight 103
The flight crew and a number of first-class passengers were seated inside the aircraft nose section when it crashed in a field near Tundergarth village church.
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Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937
DHL Flight 611

Summary
Date   1 July 2002
Type   Mid-air collision
Site   Ãœberlingen, Germany

Fatal injuries   71
Serious injuries   0
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This article is about the de Havilland Comet jet airliner. For the 1930s racing aircraft, see de Havilland DH.88.

DH.106 Comet

A Royal Air Force Comet C.2 in flight.
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AQ ICAO
AAH Callsign
ALOHA
Founded 1946 (as Trans-Pacific Airlines)
Hubs Honolulu International Airport
Focus cities John Wayne Airport
Kahului Airport
Frequent flyer program AlohaPass
Member lounge Alii Club
Fleet size 24
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Korean Air Lines Flight 007
A computer rendering of HL7442, the KAL 747 lost during Flight 007
Summary
Date  September 1, 1983
Cause  Shot down
Site  West of Sakhalin island

Origin  John F.
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Iran Air Flight 655
CG Render of Iran Air Flight 655 about to be hit by a missile from USS Vincennes
Summary
Date  July 3, 1988
Cause  Civilian airliner shoot-down
Site  Persian Gulf

Origin  Mehrabad International Airport
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March 27 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

Events


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19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1940s  1950s  1960s  - 1970s -  1980s  1990s  2000s
1974 1975 1976 - 1977 - 1978 1979 1980

Also: 1977 (album) by Ash.

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Tenerife disaster
(KLM 4805 & Pan Am 1736)

Summary
Date   March 27 1977
Type   Runway collision
Site   Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain

Fatal injuries   583
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