List of airliner shootdown incidents
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In the history of commercial aviation, there have been many airliner shootdown incidents which have been caused intentionally or by accident. This is a chronologically ordered list meant to document instances where airliners have been brought down by gunfire or missile attacks, including wartime incidents, rather than terrorist bombings or sabotage.
[edit] Kaleva
Junkers Ju 52-3/mge "Kaleva" OH-ALL was Aero O/Y's small transport plane shot down by two Soviet Ilyushin DB-3 bombers during peacetime on June 14, 1940, while en route from Tallinn to Helsinki.[1] A few minutes after taking off in Tallinn, Kaleva was intercepted by two Soviet DB-3T bomber aircraft. The bombers opened fire with their machine guns and badly damaged Kaleva, causing it to ditch in water a few kilometers northeast of Keri lighthouse. All nine passengers and crew members on board were killed.
[edit] PK-AFV
PK-AFV, also known as Pelikaan, was a Douglas DC-3 (Dakota) airliner operated by KLM from 1937 to 1942. On March 3, 1942, while on a flight from Bandung, Netherlands East Indies, to Broome, Australia, the plane was attacked by Japanese fighter planes; PK-AFV crash-landed on a beach near Broome. Four passengers were killed. Among its cargo were diamonds worth at the time an estimated £150,000-300,000 (now an approximate A$20-40 million), and the vast majority of these were lost or stolen following the crash. This mystery remains officially unsolved.
[edit] BOAC Flight 777
BOAC Flight 777, a scheduled British Overseas Airways Corporation civilian airline flight on 1 June 1943 from Portela Airport in Lisbon, Portugal to an airport at Whitchurch near Bristol, United Kingdom, was attacked by eight German Junkers Ju 88s and crashed into the Bay of Biscay, killing several notable passengers, including actor Leslie Howard.
[edit] El Al Flight 402
El Al Flight 402, a Lockheed L-049 Constellation pressurized four-engine propliner, registered 4X-AKC, was an international passenger flight from Vienna, Austria to Tel Aviv, Israel via Istanbul, Turkey, on July 27, 1955, which strayed into Bulgarian airspace and was shot down by two Bulgarian MiG-15 jet fighters and crashed near Petrich, Bulgaria. All 7 crew and 51 passengers on board the airliner were killed.[2][3]
[edit] Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114
Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 was a regularly-scheduled flight from Tripoli to Cairo via Benghazi. At 10:30 on February 21, 1973, the 727-224 left Tripoli, but became lost due to a combination of bad weather and equipment failure over northern Egypt around 13:44 (1:44 P.M. local). Lost, it entered Israeli-controlled airspace over the Sinai Peninsula, was intercepted by two Israeli F-4 Phantom IIs and shot down while trying to re-enter Egyptian airspace after refusing to follow instructions issued by the Israeli pilots. There were 113 people on board, of those there were 5 survivors, including the co-pilot.[4][5]
[edit] Korean Air Lines Flight 902
Korean Air Lines Flight 902 (KAL902, KE902) was a civilian airliner shot down by Soviet fighters on April 20, 1978 near Murmansk, after it violated Soviet airspace and failed to respond to Soviet interceptors. Two passengers were killed in the incident. 107 passengers and crew survived after the plane made an emergency landing on a frozen lake.
[edit] Air Rhodesia Flight RH825
Air Rhodesia Flight RH825, was a scheduled flight between Kariba and Salisbury that was shot down on 3 September 1978 by ZIPRA guerrillas using a Strela 2 missile. 18 of the 56 passengers survived the crash, but 10 of the survivors were summarily executed by the guerrillas at the crash site.
[edit] Air Rhodesia Flight RH827
Air Rhodesia Flight RH827 was scheduled flight between Kariba and Salisbury that was shot down on February 12, 1979 by ZIPRA guerrillas using a Strela 2 missile in similar circumstances to Flight RH825 five months earlier. None of the 59 passengers or crew survived.
[edit] Korean Air Lines Flight 007
Korean Air Lines Flight 007, also known as KAL 007 or KE007, was a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 civilian airliner shot down by Soviet jet interceptors on September 1, 1983 just west of Sakhalin island. 269 passengers and crew, including US congressman Larry McDonald, were aboard KAL 007; there were no known survivors.
[edit] Iran Air Flight 655
Iran Air Flight 655 (IR655) was a commercial flight operated by Iran Air that flew from Bandar Abbas, Iran to Dubai, UAE. On Sunday July 3, 1988, towards the end of the Iran Iraq War, the aircraft flying IR655 was shot down by the U.S. Navy Ticonderoga class guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes between Bandar Abbas and Dubai, killing all 290 passengers and crew aboard, including 38 non-Iranians and 66 children. Vincennes was inside Iranian territorial waters, at the time of the attack and IR655 was within Iranian airspace.
[edit] September 1993 Transair Georgian Airline Shootdowns
In September, 1993, three airliners belonging to Transair Georgia were shot down by missiles and gunfire fired from rebels in Sukhumi, Abkhazia, Georgia.
[edit] Siberia Airlines Flight 1812
On October 4, 2001, a Tupolev Tu-154 operated by Siberia Airlines en route from Tel Aviv (Israel) to Novosibirsk (Russia) was shot down over the Black Sea by Ukrainian air defence forces. There were 12 crew and 66 passengers aboard; all were killed.
[edit] 2007 Balad aircraft crash
On January 9, 2007 an Antonov An-26 crashed while attempting a landing at Balad Air Base in Iraq. Although poor weather is blamed by officials, witnesses claim they saw the plane being shot down, and a terrorist group has claimed responsibility. 34 of the 35 civilian passengers on board were killed.
[edit] 2007 Mogadishu TransAVIAexport Airlines Il-76 crash
On March 23, 2007, a TransAVIAexport Airlines Ilyushin Il-76 airplane crashed in outskirts of Mogadishu, Somalia, during the 2007 Battle of Mogadishu. Witnesses, including a Shabelle reporter, claim they saw the plane shot down, and Belarus has initiated an anti-terrorist investigation, but Somalia insist the crash was accidental. All 11 Belarusin civilians on board were killed.
[edit] References
- ^ Virtualpilots - Tapauskaleva. Retrieved on 30-1-2007.
- ^ ASN record.
- ^ "Through the Curtain", Time Magazine, August 8, 1955.
- ^ http://www.airsafe.com/events/models/b727.htm List of 727 incidents.
- ^ Aerial intrusions by Civil and Military Aircraft in a Time of Peace Phelps, John Maj. Military Law Review Vol 107 Winter 1985 Page 288
[edit] See also
- Flight Guard - a missile defense for civilian aircraft
- Air navigation - for the cause of KAL 007's deviation into Soviet airspace and into harm's way
[edit] External Links
The International Committee for the Rescue of KAL 007 Survivors
