Accidents and incidents in aviation

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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 making a dive, Strickilin realized he could not pull up in time and ejected after aiming it at a safe place. Stricklin was not injured.

An aviation accident is an occurrence on board an aircraft resulting in injury or death to one or more persons. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board definition of an aviation accident is as follows:

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, and in which any person suffers death or serious injury, or in which the aircraft receives substantial damage.

Other countries adopt a similar approach, although there are minor variations, such as to the extent of aviation-related operations on the ground, covered, as well as with respect to the thresholds beyond which an injury is considered serious or the damage is considered substantial. A hull-loss accident is one where the damage to the plane is such that it must be written off, or in which the plane is totally destroyed.

History

The first known aviation fatality, deaths of balloonists Pilâtre de Rozier and Romain (June 15, 1785).

Since the birth of flight, aircraft have crashed, often with serious consequences. This is due to 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 nowadays an extremely safe 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.

The first aircraft fatality in history occurred in 1908 when Lt. Thomas Selfridge was killed in this plane piloted by Orville Wright. The accident was caused by propeller separation. Orville Wright suffered broken ribs, pelvis and a leg. (17 September, 1908)

Otto Lilienthal died after a failure of one of his gliders. On his 2500th flight (August 10, 1896), a gust of wind broke the wing of his glider, 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 from it from some height.

The Wright Flyer nearly crashed on the day of its historic flight, sustaining some damage when landing. Thomas Selfridge became the first person killed in a powered aircraft on September 17, 1908 when Orville Wright crashed after propeller failure of his one-passenger plane during military tests at Fort Myer in Virginia.

Causes

About 80 percent of all aviation accidents occur during takeoff or landing (or shortly before and after) and are typically the result of human error and/or unregarded technical problems within an aircraft; mid-air disasters are rare but not entirely uncommon. Among other things, the latter have been caused by bombs as in the 1988 Lockerbie incident, mid-air collisions such as in the 2002 Überlingen crash or in cases of (purportedly) mistaken identity where civilian aircraft were shot down by military (compare Korean Air Flight 007).

An accident survey [link] 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

Safety

• 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.

The NTSB

frame

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). Some accidents the NTSB has reported include:

Date	Location	Operator	Make/Model	Fatal	Surviving
01/13/82	Washington, D.C.	Air Florida	Boeing 737-222	70	4
01/23/82	Boston, MA	World Airways	McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30	2	198
07/09/82	New Orleans, LA	Pan American World Airways	Boeing 727-235	137	0
11/08/82	Honolulu, HI	Pan American World Airways	Boeing 747-100	1	274
01/09/83	Brainerd, MN	Republic Airlines	Convair 580-11-A	1	29
10/11/83	Pinckneyville, IL	Air Illinois	Hawker Siddeley HS-748-2A	7	0
01/01/85	La Paz, Bolivia	Eastern Air Lines	Boeing 727-225	21	0
01/21/85	Reno, NV	Galaxy Airlines	Lockheed 188C	64	1
08/02/85	Dallas/FT Worth, TX	Delta Airlines	Lockheed L-1011-385-1	126	26
09/06/85	Milwaukee, WI	Midwest Express Airlines	Douglas DC-9-14	27	0
12/12/85	Gander, Newfoundland	Arrow Airways	Douglas DC-8-63	248	0
02/04/86	Near Athens, Greece	Trans World Airlines	Boeing 727-231	4	110
02/14/87	Durango, MX	Ports OF Call	Boeing 707-323B	1	125
08/16/87	Romulus, MI	Northwest Airlines	McDonnell Douglas DC-9-82	148	1
11/15/87	Denver, CO	Continental Airlines	McDonnell Douglas DC-9-14	25	52
12/07/87	San Luis Obispo, CA	Pacific Southwest Airlines	British Aerospace Bae-146-200	38	0
08/31/88	Dallas/FT Worth, TX	Delta Airlines	Boeing 727-232	12	89
12/21/88	Lockerbie, Scotland	Pan American World Airways	Boeing 747-121	243	0
02/08/89	Santamaria, Azores	Independent Air	Boeing 707	137	0
02/24/89	Honolulu, HI	United Airlines	Boeing 747-122	9	328
07/19/89	Sioux City, IA	United Airlines	McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10	110	175
09/20/89	Flushing, NY	USAir	Boeing 737-400	2	55
12/27/89	Miami, FL	Eastern Air Lines	Boeing 727-225B	1	46
10/03/90	Cape Canaveral, FL	Eastern Air Lines	McDonnell Douglas DC-9-31	1	90
12/03/90	Romulus, MI	Northwest Airlines	McDonnell Douglas DC-9-14	7	33
02/01/91	Los Angeles, CA	Usair	Boeing 737-300	20	63
03/03/91	Colorado Spgs, CO	United Airlines	Boeing 737-291	20	0
03/22/92	Flushing, NY	Usair	Fokker 28-4000	25	22
07/02/94	Charlotte, NC	Usair	Douglas DC-9-30	37	20
09/08/94	Aliquippa, PA	Usair	Boeing B-737-300	127	0
10/31/94	Roselawn, IN	American Eagle	Atr-72-212	64	0
12/20/95	Cali, Colombia	American Airlines	Boeing B-757	152	4
05/11/96	Miami, FL	Valujet Airlines	McDonnell Douglas DC-9	105	0
07/06/96	Pensacola, FL	Delta Airlines	McDonnell Douglas MD-88	2	140
07/17/96	Moriches, NY	Trans World Airlines	Boeing 747	212	0
08/02/97	Lima, Peru	Continental Airlines	Boeing 757-200	1	141
12/28/97	Pacific Ocean	United Airlines	Boeing 747	1	373
06/01/99	Little Rock, AR	American Airlines	McDonnell Douglas MD-80	10	129
01/31/00	Point Mugu, CA	Alaska Airlines	McDonnell Douglas MD-83	83	0
09/11/01	New York City, NY	American Airlines	Boeing 767-200	81	0
09/11/01	New York City, NY	United Airlines	Boeing 767-200	56	0
09/11/01	Arlington, VA	American Airlines	Boeing 757-200	58	0
09/11/01	Shanksville, PA	United Airlines	Boeing 757	37	0
11/12/01	Belle Harbor, NY	American Airlines	AirBus Industrie A300-600	251	0
01/08/03	Charlotte, NC	US Airways Express	Beech 1900	19	0
10/19/04	Kirksville, MO	Corporate Airlines	British Aerospace Jetstream 32	13	2

Well-known aviation accidents

• A United Airlines Boeing 247 was destroyed by a nitroglycerin bomb on October 10, 1933, over Chesterton, Indiana, killing all ten aboard. The Chesterton Crash was the first proven case of air sabotage.
• The zeppelin LZ129 Hindenburg caught fire while approaching to land at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey on May 6, 1937 — the fire destroyed the largest airship ever built and killed 35 of the 97 onboard and 1 on the ground, effectively ending the era of commercial lighter-than-air travel.
• On January 5 1941, a plane veered off course in bad weather and crashed into the river Thames's estuary. The pilot, Amy Johnson, disappeared without a trace.
• A B-25 Mitchell bomber hit the Empire State Building on July 28, 1945.
• A De Havilland Comet crashed in Jalalogori, India soon after take-off from Calcutta (now Kolkata) on May 2, 1953 — the first of a series of crashes that led to Comet 1 fleet being grounded and eventually scrapped.
• The Grand Canyon Midair Collision, on June 30, 1956, in which a TWA Lockheed Super Constellation and a United Airlines Douglas DC-7 collided while flying over the Grand Canyon in Arizona, killing all 128 passengers and crew members aboard both aircraft.
• Trans Canada Air Lines Flight 810 (9), a DC-4M-2 Northstar, crashes on December 9, 1956 into Slesse Mountain near Chilliwack, British Columbia during heavy weather. Among the passengers killed were four members of the Saskatchewan Roughriders, who were on their way home from a game in Vancouver. Bodies were not found until the following late summer due to severe terrain and high altitude and unknown location of the crash.
• The Munich air disaster on February 6, 1958, in which an Airspeed Ambassador carrying members of the Manchester United football club crashed while attempting to take off in slushy conditions.
• The Day The Music Died - February 3, 1959, plane crash that killed Richie Valens, Buddy Holly, and The Big Bopper
• On 16 November, 1959, National Airlines flight #967 crashed into the Gulf of Mexico while on a flight from Tampa to New Orleans. It was reported to have been caused by a bomb planted on the aircraft by Dr. Richard Spears. Less than 60 days later, on 6 January, 1960 another National Airlines flight crashed and again it was reported that the crash had been caused by a bomb on board. To this date these two aviation accidents are among a handful of aircraft crashes that remain unsolved.
• The 1960 New York air disaster, on December 16, 1960, in which a United Airlines Douglas DC-8 jet collided with a TWA Lockheed Super Constellation propliner over Staten Island, New York. The Constellation crashed onto a military airfield; the United jet careened into the Park Slope section of Brooklyn, where it crashed and exploded. All 128 occupants of both planes and six people on the ground died.
• BOAC flight 911 broke apart after encountering strong mountainside turbulence on 5 March 1966, killing 133 passengers and 11 crew.
• Aer Lingus Flight 712 in 1968. 61 passengers and crew were lost aboard a Vickers Viscount 803 EI-AOM from Cork to London when it crashed in mysterious circumstances into the sea off Tuskar Rock, County Wexford. No definite cause has been found. Some have speculated that the aircraft may have suffered a missile strike.
• The LANSA Lockheed Electra OB-R-941 on a flight from Lima to Pucallpa, Peru, broke apart in mid-air after being set aflame by lightning on December 24, 1971. It crashed in the Amazon Rainforest. 91 people died; the sole survivor was Juliane Koepcke, a 17-year old girl who survived the 2-mile fall and a 10-day walk through the jungle before being found by hunters. Her mother, famous ornithologist Maria Koepcke, died; director Werner Herzog had narrowly missed being on the same flight.
• Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 also known less formally as the Andes flight disaster, was an airline flight that crashed in the Andes on October 13, 1972.
• The Zagreb mid-air collision on September 10, 1976, British Airways Trident Three and Inex-Adria Aviopromet DC-9 collided over Zagreb VOR, 176 people died.
• Cubana Flight 455 - A Cubana de Aviación flight departing from Barbados, via Trinidad, to Cuba. On 6 October 1976 two timebombs variously described as dynamite or C-4 planted on the Douglas DC-8 aircraft exploded, killing all 73 people on board. Evidence implicated several CIA-linked anti-Castro Cuban exiles and members of the Venezuelan secret police DISIP. Political complications quickly arose when Cuba accused the US government of being an accomplice to the attack. CIA documents released in 2005 indicate that the agency had prior knowledge that the bombing was going to take place.
• The Tenerife disaster: on March 27, 1977, two Boeing 747 airliners, from KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and PanAm collided on the runway of Los Rodeos Airport, Tenerife, Islas Canarias, killing 583 people. It is the worst accidental disaster in the history of aviation.
• The crash of Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 182, in San Diego, California on September 25, 1978, following the PSA Boeing 727-214 jetliner's midair collision with a Cessna. California's worst aviation disaster to date, with a death toll of 144.
• American Airlines Flight 191, 25 May, 1979. The DC-10's engine fell off soon after take-off from Chicago O'Hare. 273 dead. The crash remains the USA's worst single aircraft crash to date.
• The Mount Erebus disaster, in 1979, in which an Air New Zealand DC-10 flew into Mount Erebus, Antarctica.
• 28 July, 1982 - 12 passengers die in a small aircraft crash in Lindale, Texas, including gospel music singer/pioneer Keith Green and his two children.
• The Air Canada Flight 143 (the "Gimli Glider") crash-landed in Gimli, Manitoba, Canada on July 23, 1983 after the plane ran out of fuel because of a metric conversion error during refueling. Only a few passengers were slightly injured, and none were killed.
• Korean Air Flight 007 — Shot down by Soviet Union fighter planes on 31 August 1983. All 269 passengers and crew on board died.
• The Air India Bombing of June 23, 1985 was the largest mass-murder in Canadian history, caused by a bomb placed in checked luggage.
• Japan Airlines Flight 123 — the worst single-aircraft disaster in history, killing 520 people, on August 12, 1985. After a previous "tailstrike" landing (the tail had inadvertently hit the runway on a hard landing), improper repair by Boeing and JAL engineers caused the rear bulkhead to give way, during flight, due to metal fatigue. The resulting blowout of the bulkhead caused 15 feet (5 m) of leading edge and the vertical stabilizer to fall into the sea, depressurized the cabin, and severed all four of the aircraft's hydraulic lines. The pilots used engine thrust to control the plane to some extent but it eventually crashed into a mountain. Some thirty minutes elapsed from the time the tailplane buckled to the time of the crash, long enough for some passengers to scribble shaky farewells to their families. JAL accepted partial responsibility as the tail had been making intermittent whistling noises (suggesting a flaw in the fuselage) for years and no maintenance action was taken after the repair. The Japanese government claimed that because of the rain, unfavorable terrain, and lack of sunlight, rescue crews were unable to reach the crash site until the following morning, twelve hours after the crash. However an off-duty flight attendant who survived the crash recounted from her hospital bed that she recalled bright lights and the sound of helicopter rotors shortly after she awoke amid the wreckage, but that nothing further was seen or heard until the Japanese Self-Defense Forces arrived the next day. It is believed that a substantial number of people survived the initial crash, but succumbed to hypothermia before they could be rescued.
• The USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655 over the Persian Gulf, reportedly after mistaking it for an F-14 fighter. All 290 passengers on board were killed.
• Ramstein airshow disaster — Three pilots and 67 on the ground were killed and 347 were seriously injured after a midair collision involving three planes during the performance of the Italian Air Force display team, Frecce Tricolori on August 28, 1988.
• Pan Am Flight 103 — Also known as the 'Lockerbie Bombing' or the 'Lockerbie Disaster' in Scotland. On 21 December 1988, a Boeing 747 was destroyed in mid-air by a bomb, killing all 278 on board and another 11 on the ground. (Had the plane taken its intended route it would have blown up over the Atlantic Ocean.)
• United Flight 232, in which the main hydraulics and both redundant back-ups were severed by a broken fan blade. The flight crew maneuvered the craft by skilled thrust application. Over 100 passengers died, but the pilots were praised for averting a total catastrophe.
• China Airlines Flight 140 crashed at Nagoya Airport on April 26, 1994, killing 264 people.
• In April 1994, an attempted hijacking conducted by suicidal flight engineer Auburn Calloway aboard FedEx Flight 705 was foiled by the flight crew, who all the same suffered grievous injuries due to the several blows to the head from hammers used in the attempted takeover, which began - and ended - at Memphis, Tennessee.
• Tarom Flight 371 crashed near Baloteşti in Romania on 31 March 1995, All persons on board (10 crew and 50 passengers) perished.
• ValuJet Flight 592 crashed into the Florida Everglades on May 11, 1996, killing all 110 passengers and flight crew on board.
• TWA Flight 800 exploded over the Atlantic Ocean on July 17, 1996, killing all 230 people on board.
• AeroPeru Flight 603 crashed because of a maintenance error on October 2, 1996, killing 70 people.
• Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 was hijacked off the coast of Africa, with the hijackers demanded that the plane fly to Australia. The plane, which lacked the amount of fuel to fly that distance, was flown into the sea by the captain. Of the 175 people on board, 50 survived.
• Korean Air Flight 801 crashed near Guam Antonio B. Won Pat International Airport on August 6, 1997, killing 228 people.
• China Airlines Flight 676 crashed near Taipei's C.K.S. Int'l Airport on February 16, 1998 killing all 196 aboard and 9 on the ground.
• Swissair Flight 111 crashed into the ocean near Nova Scotia, Canada on 2 September, 1998. The plane was a McDonnell Douglas MD-11 on a scheduled airline flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City to Cointrin International Airport in Geneva, Switzerland. All 229 people on board were killed.
• Mandarin Airlines Flight 642 crashed on Hong Kong International Airport during landing on August 22, 1999, killing 3 people.
• EgyptAir Flight 990 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on October 31, 1999.
• Air France Flight 4590 was a Concorde flight from Charles de Gaulle International Airport near Paris, France to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, New York, which crashed on 25 July, 2000, in Gonesse, France shortly after takeoff, killing all on board and four on the ground.
• Singapore Airlines Flight SQ 006 was a Boeing 747 flying from Taipei, Taiwan to Los Angeles International Airport. Due to various contributing factors, the aircraft took off from the wrong runway, colliding with construction equipment and crashing immediately. 83 people were killed. It was the first crash of a Singapore Airlines branded plane.
• R&B singer Aaliyah was killed when a Cessna flying her and a film crew to Miami crashed in the Bahamas on August 25, 2001.
• September 11, 2001 attacks — American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 were intentionally crashed into the World Trade Center buildings in Manhattan, New York on September 11, 2001, killing all on board and 2595 on the ground as the buildings collapsed. Concurrently, American Airlines Flight 77 and United Airlines Flight 93 were crashed (with the passengers of Flight 93 attempting to take back the plane from the terrorists) in related terrorist attacks, into The Pentagon in Washington, D.C. and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, respectively. As with the World Trade Center attacks, all on board these two flights were killed, as well as 125 in the Pentagon.
• American Airlines Flight 587 crashed in Queens, New York minutes after take-off on November 12, 2001, killing all 260 people onboard.
• China Airlines Flight 611 broke up near Penghu Islands mid-air on May 25, 2002, killing all 225 people on board.
• Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937, Tupolev 154, collided mid-air with a DHL-owned cargo plane near the German town of Überlingen on July 1, 2002. All 71 people aboard both planes were killed (52 were Russian children travelling to Spain on a school trip). Skyguide, The private Swiss airspace control company responsible for directing the two planes has since accepted blame for the crash. The father of one of the Russian children later traveled to the private residence of the flight controller who was considered responsible for the accident and mortally wounded him with a knife.
• On July 27, 2002, a Ukrainian Air Force Sukhoi SU-27 fighter jet crashed into a crowd of spectators during an aerobatics performance at an airshow in Lviv, Ukraine. Both pilots ejected and landed safely, however 84 people on the ground died and more than 100 were injured, making this the worst airshow disaster to date.
• DHL Flight on 22 November, 2003 - A casualty of the Iraq war, the pilots managed to steer the plane back to an airport. This incident is recognized because it is the first time that an aeroplane has been landed without any hydraulics.
• Flash Airlines Flight 604 crashed shortly after take-off from Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on January 3, 2004. All 135 passengers and 13 crew were killed.
• Helios Airways Flight 522, Boeing 737-31S, crashed into a mountain between Marathon and Varnavas on 14 August, 2005 killing 121.
• Air France Flight 358 overshot the runway when landing at Pearson Airport, Toronto, Canada during a heavy thunderstorm on August 2, 2005, slid into a ravine meters away from Highway 401, the busiest Canadian highway filled with rush-hour traffic, and was completely destroyed by fire. All 297 passengers and 12 crew survived the accident.
• West Caribbean Airways Flight 708 crashed in a mountainous region in north-west Venezuela on the morning of Tuesday, August 16, 2005, killing all 152 passengers and eight crew. It was the worst crash to date in Venezuelan history.
• TANS Peru Flight 204 crashed near Pucallpa, Peru on August 23, 2005. At least 41 people died and about 50 survived.
• Mandala Airlines Flight 091 crashed into a heavily-populated residential area seconds after taking off from Polonia International Airport in Medan, Indonesia on September 5, 2005.
• On September 21, 2005, JetBlue Airways Flight 292 made an emergency landing at Los Angeles International Airport with its nose gear cocked at 90 degrees. The Airbus A320 took off from Bob Hope Airport in Burbank originally heading for John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, NY. Shortly after, the pilot noticed something wrong with the landing gear. The pilot flew low over Van Nuys Airport and it was reported that the landing gear was cocked to the side. The plane circled the Los Angeles area for about three hours and made the emergency landing at LAX. The landing was successful and nobody was injured.
• An Iranian Air Force C-130 crashed into a residential area in Tehran on December 6, 2005, killing at least 120.
• On December 27, 2005, Southwest Airlines Flight 1248 overshot the runway at Chicago Midway Airport. One of the vehicle's front tires crushed a minivan, killing one 5-year-old boy and injuring two other people inside the van.
• On July 9, 2006, S7 Airlines Flight 778, and Airbus 310, overshot the runway at Irkutsk Airport in eastern Russia. It careered off the runway, crashed through a concrete wall into garage buildings and burst into flames, killing at least 122 with 74 surviving.

Helicopter crashes

• June 1, 2006, A USSOCOM MH-47 of 3rd Bat. 160th SOAR Night Stalkers which had left Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah (GA) went down in rural Colquitt County just after 8 a.m. as it flew past a television station's 1000 ft tall tower and clipped a wire. 4 soldiers were killed and one survived the crash.
• September 23, 2005, Heli USA Airways, Haena, HI
• September 20, 2003, Sundance Helicopters, Grand Canyon West, AZ
• July 23, 2003, Jack Harter Helicopters, Waialeale Crater, Kauai, HI
• An RAF Chinook helicopter crashed on the Mull of Kintyre in Scotland in 1994.
• Graham 'Shirley' Strachan (lead singer of the Skyhooks) died in 2001 in a helicopter crash in Queensland, Australia
• Alia al Hussein died in a helicopter crash in Amman, Jordan and Amman airport was afterwards renamed Queen Alia International Airport.
• Abdul Salam Arif was killed in a helicopter crash in southern Iraq.
• Proton's CEO, Tan Sri Yahaya Ahmad was killed in a helicopter crash in 1997.
• René Barrientos died as the result of a helicopter crash near Arque village in Bolivia.
• Bill Graham died in a helicopter crash in 1991.
• Aleksandr Lebed died in a helicopter crash in bad weather in 2002.
• Patriarch Petros VII of the Orthodox Church of Alexandria died in a helicopter crash on September 11, 2004, in the Aegean Sea near Greece, killing him and several other clergy, including Bishop Nectarios of Madagascar.
• Disney's second in command, Frank Wells, died in a helicopter crash
• Two MH-60 Black Hawks were shot down in the Battle of Mogadishu, the incident on which the book and film Black Hawk Down were based.
• Actor Vic Morrow died on the set of on July 23, 1982 while holding two small children. A helicopter being used on the set spun out of control and crashed, decapitating him and one of the children with its blades. The remaining child was crushed as the helicopter crashed. Everyone inside the helicopter was unharmed. The accident led to massive reforms in U.S. child labor laws and safety regulations on film sets in California.
• April 7, 2001 - An M-17 helicopter crashes into mountain in south of Hanoi, Vietnam killing 16. The flight was carrying United States armed forces personnel searching for MIAs from Vietnam War.
• Guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan died in a helicopter crash on August 27, 1990, after performing a show in East Troy, Wisconsin. While flying from East Troy to Chicago, the helicopter encountered heavy fog and crashed into a hillside, killing all aboard. Eric Clapton was originally going to be on the helicopter, but gave his seat to Stevie.
• January 19 1995, G-TIGK North Sea ditching - A helicopter just off Aberdeen, north-east Scotland,in the North Sea, was struck by lightning and crashed into the water, but all the crew survived on a life raft.

Iraq war

• August 12, 2005 - AH-64 Apache crashes near Kirkuk, injuring the two pilots.
• May 31, 2005 - An Italian AB-412 helicopter crashes near Nasiriyah, killing the four soldiers on board.
• December 15, 2004 - A helicopter crashes near Karbala after it suffers engine failure; 3 Polish soldiers are killed and 4 injured.
• September 8, 2004 - Helicopter crashes 20 miles south of Fallujah; all 4 crew members survive.
• April 7, 2004 - US helicopter crashes near Baquba.
• March 21, 2003 - 4 Marines killed as helicopter crashes.

See also

Lists of commercial airliner accidents

• Grouped by airline
• Grouped by location
• Grouped by year
• (see subcategories)

Lists of military aircraft accidents

• List of notable incidents and accidents on military aircraft

Specific events

• Cavalese cable-car disaster (United States Marine Corps EA-6B Prowler jet cut off cable of a cable-car, killing 20 people)
• Kegworth air disaster (Boeing 737 G-OBME crashed on the embankment of Britain's M1 motorway after an engine failure)
• Manchester air disaster (Boeing 737 caught fire on the ground after an engine failure)
• Munich air disaster (Airspeed Ambassador crashed attempting take-off during a blizzard)
• Staines air disaster (Trident stalled and crashed shortly after takeoff)
• Superga air disaster, aircraft crashed into the Superga hills outside Turin

Air safety

• Air safety
• National Transportation Safety Board (US investigation authority)
• Air Accidents Investigation Branch (UK investigation authority)
• Transportation Safety Board of Canada (Canada investigation authority)
• Aviation archaeology

Other

• Disaster
• Aircraft hijacking
• List of deaths by aircraft misadventure
• List of people who died in aviation-related incidents
• List of space disasters

External links

• [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]
• [link], editorial citing examples of most severe consequences of pilot error and other human error
• [Check-Six.com] Celebrities/Famous People Killed in Plane Crashes
• [PlaneCrashInfo.com] Data, photos and sounds.
• [Computer-Related Incidents with Commercial Aircraft:] A Compendium of Resources, Reports, Research, Discussion and Commentary, compiled by Peter B. Ladkin et al.
• [AirDisaster.com] An online aviation accident database.

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