Aviation accidents and incidents

Thunderbird 1st year Capt. Christopher Stricklin ejected from his USAF F-16 aircraft at an airshow at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, on September 14, 2003. While performing a Reverse Half Cuban Eight, Stricklin realized he could not pull up in time and ejected. Eight-tenths of a second later, the plane crashed, skidding aflame 200 yards, and the engine flew out and went another 100 yards. Except for a few bruises, he was not injured.

An aviation accident is defined in the Convention on International Civil Aviation Annex 13 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 person is fatally or seriously injured, the aircraft sustains damage or structural failure or the aircraft is missing or is completely inaccessible.

An aviation incident is also defined there 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 aircraft is such that it must be written off, or in which the plane is destroyed is called a hull loss accident.

Major disasters

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 September 11, 2001 with the intentional crashing of American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 by Al-Qaeda terrorists. 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, 184 were killed when American Airlines Flight 77 was crashed into The Pentagon and 40 were killed when United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a Pennsylvania field, bringing the total number of casualties of the September 11 attacks to 2,976 (excluding the 19 terrorist hijackers).

A CGI rendering of the two 747s that were destroyed in the Tenerife Disaster.

The March 27, 1977, Tenerife disaster remains the accident with the highest number of airliner passenger fatalities. In this disaster, 583 people died when a KLM Boeing 747 attempted take-off and collided with a taxiing Pan Am 747 at Los Rodeos Airport. Pilot error, Air Traffic Control error, communications problems, fog, and airfield congestion due to a bombing and a second bomb threat at another airport, which diverted air traffic to Los Rodeos, 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 from a failed pressure bulkhead repair, which destroyed its vertical stabilizer and severed hydraulic lines, making the 747 virtually uncontrollable.

Turkish Airlines Flight 981

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. Three hundred and forty-nine 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 aircraft from flying in opposite directions at the same altitude.

On March 3, 1974, Turkish Airlines Flight 981, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10, crashed in a forest northeast of Paris, France. The destination was London but the plane crashed shortly after taking off from Orly airport. There were a total of 346 people on board; all of them perished in the crash. 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 June 23, 1985, Air India Flight 182 crashed off the southwest coast of Ireland when a bomb exploded in the cargo hold. On board the Boeing 747-237B were 307 passengers and 22 crew members, all of whom were killed when the plane disintegrated. One passenger checked in as "M. Singh". He didn't board the flight but his suitcase that 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.

On September 1, 1983, a Soviet Sukhoi Su-15 shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 killing all 269 passengers and crew^[1].

Iran Air Flight 655 was a civilian airliner shot down by US missiles on Sunday 3 July 1988, over the Strait of Hormuz killing all 290 passengers and crew aboard, including 66 children, ranking it seventh among the deadliest airline disasters.

Pan Am Flight 103 was a Boeing 747-121 that was destroyed by a terrorist bomb over the town of Lockerbie, Scotland on December 21, 1988. The crash killed all 243 passengers, all 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.

In August 1985 Delta Air Lines Flight 191 was brought down by a microburst in Dallas Texas. Flight 191 was arriving at DFW around 6 o'clock and entered a thunderstorm just north of DFW. The plane struck the ground the first time in a field just north of the airfield. The plane then bounced back in the air and came down a final time on highway 114. It struck a car killing its driver then went on to smash head on into two huge water tanks.

Safety

Controlled Impact by NASA and the FAA.

Aviation safety has come a long way 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 travelling by car and twice as safe as rail."^[2]

However, when measured by fatalities per person transported, buses 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.^[3]

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.^[4]

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.^[5] 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.^[6]

Statistics

Aircraft Crashes Record Office (ACRO)

The Geneva-based Aircraft Crashes Record Office (ACRO) compiles statistics on aviation accidents of aircraft capable of carrying more than six passengers, not including helicopters, balloons, or fighter airplanes. The ACRO announced that the year 2007 was the safest year in aviation since 1963 in terms of number of accidents.^[7] There had been 136 accidents registered (compared to 164 in 2006), resulting in a total of 965 deaths (compared to 1,293 in 2006). 2004 was the year with the lowest number of fatalities since the end of World War II, with 771 deaths. The year with most fatalities was 1972, with 3,214 deaths.

TWA Flight 800.

Air accident fatalities recorded by ACRO 1918-2009

Air accident incidents recorded by ACRO 1918-2009

Annual Aviation Safety Review (EASA)

The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is tasked by Article 15(4) of Regulation (EC) No 216/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 February 2008 to provide a review of aviation safety on an annual basis.

The Annual Safety Review presents statistics on European and worldwide civil aviation safety. The statistics are grouped according to type of operation, for instance commercial air transport, and aircraft category, such as aeroplanes, helicopters, gliders etc. The Agency had access to accident and statistical information collected by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). States are required, according to ICAO Annex 13 on Aircraft Accident and Incident Investigation, to report to ICAO information on accidents and serious incidents to aircraft with a maximum certificated take-off mass (MTOM) over 2250 kg. Therefore, most statistics in this review concern aircraft above this mass. In addition to the ICAO data, a request was made to the EASA Member States to obtain light aircraft accident data. Furthermore, data on the operation of aircraft for commercial air transport was obtained from both ICAO and the NLR Air Transport Safety Institute.^[10]

Investigation

United States

In the United States, most civil aviation incidents are investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). When investigating an aviation disaster, NTSB investigators piece together evidence from the crash and determine the likely cause or causes. The NTSB will also investigate incidents which occur overseas in collaboration with local investigation authorities where the crash has involved a US-registered aircraft, where there has been significant loss of American lives, or when the type of aircraft involved is built by an American.

United Kingdom

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.

France

In France, the agency responsible for investigation of civilian air crashes is the Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la Sécurité de l'Aviation Civile (BEA). Its purpose is to establish the circumstances and causes of the accident and to make recommendations for their future avoidance.

Canada

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.

Australia

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau is the federal government body responsible for investigating transport-related accidents and incidents within Australia. It covers air, sea, and rail travel. It is an agency of the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government.

Retirement of flight numbers

It is common for an airline to cease using the flight number after a fatal crash.^[11] This is not always the case; see, for example, Japan Airlines 123, Aeroflot Flight 593, Aero Flight 311, Iran Air Flight 655, United Airlines Flights numbered 608, 624, and 823, and Aer Lingus Flight 712.

See also

• Category:20th-century aviation accidents and incidents
• Category:21st-century aviation accidents and incidents

Lists of airliner accidents

• by year
• by airline
• by location
• by death toll
• by cause/in alphabetical order
• Mid-air collision
• List of airship accidents
• List of accidents and incidents involving general aviation (including chartered / non-scheduled passenger flights)

Lists of military aircraft accidents

• List of accidents and incidents involving military aircraft
• List of aviation shootdowns and accidents during the Iraq War
• List of Coalition aircraft crashes in Afghanistan
• List of C-130 Hercules crashes

Air safety

• Air safety
• Aviation archaeology

Aviation authorities

• ICAO
• EASA
• FAA
• Civil Aviation Authority
• Civil Aviation Safety Authority

Other

• Accident analysis
• Aircraft hijacking
• Disaster
• Fuel tank explosion and fuel tank inerting system
• List of aircraft shootdowns
• List of people who died in aviation accidents and incidents
• List of space disasters
• List of airshow accidents
• List of news aircraft crashes

References

Bibliography

• USAF & NATO Report RTO-TR-015 AC/323/(HFM-015)/TP-1 (2001).

External links

• Aircraft Crashes Record Office based in Geneva, Switzerland
• Aviation Safety Network Established in 1996. The ASN Safety Database contains descriptions of over 12200 airliner, military and corporate jet aircraft accidents/incidents since 1943.
• National Transportation Safety Board Accident Database & Synopses
• Human Error Vs. Airborne Terrorism - editorial citing examples of most severe consequences of pilot error and other human error.
• Computer-Related Incidents with Commercial Aircraft: A Compendium of Resources, Reports, Research, Discussion and Commentary, compiled by Peter B. Ladkin et al.
• Why Aircraft Fail Common causes of structural failure in aircraft components.
• http://www.airdisaster.com/ Air disasters website
• http://www.AirCrashInfo.net Air Crash and CVR Database

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