Air Accidents and Incidents

The aircraft, while considered the safest mode of transport, accidents with aircraft have more tragic consequences. Such incidents are characterized by a large number of casualties, significant damage or destruction of the aircraft, public outcry and close media attention.

Classification of flight incidents

Aircraft accidents and incidents are classified according to several signs. There are ground and flight incidents. Terrestrial refers to those incidents that occurred before or after the flight. Aircraft accidents - these are the disasters that are associated with the fulfillment of the crew's flight task.

In addition, they distinguish breakages, accidents and catastrophes. Breakdown leads to minor damage to the aircraft, victims and injured while not. Accident is called an incident that did not result in the death of people, as a result of which the aircraft receives significant damage or collapses. Disaster refers to aviation accidents, which are characterized by:

• Damage to the aircraft so that repairs are economically unreasonable or impossible, complete destruction of the aircraft;
• Death of passengers or crew members, as well as people who were on board, within the next 30 days from the time of the accident.

Causes of aviation accidents

The most common cause of aircraft accidents are pilot mistakes, that is, the human factor. In 42% of cases, for other reasons, accidents occur. The factors of disasters are distributed as follows:

• 58% of incidents that caused the death of one or more passengers or crew members occur due to pilot errors.
• 22% of tragedies are due to failure of technology.
• 12% of accidents are due to unfavorable weather conditions during the flight.
• 9% of accidents happen due to terrorist acts.
• 7% is due to errors of ground airport personnel.
• 1% of aviation incidents occur due to the influence of another kind of reasons.

Accidents and incidents caused by the human factor in 29% of cases occurred by accident, due to inattention or forgetfulness of the pilots, 16% accounted for errors caused by difficult meteorological conditions, in 5% of the cases, the failure of equipment is the cause of the incidents.

Methods of investigating air crashes

Every tragic incident with an aircraft is subject to mandatory review and analysis. The rules for the investigation of accidents and incidents suggest the rapid creation of a rapid response group, which includes specialists from areas directly or indirectly related to this area. In the future, the case is transferred to the commission for the investigation of an aviation accident or aviation incident in Russia, the National Security Council in transport in the US or other services.

The analysis of accidents and incidents involves the following stages:

• The search for the main four parts of the aircraft to determine whether the aircraft crashed into the ground or disintegrated in the air.
• Search and listen to airborne recorders.
• Checking the negotiations between the pilots and the dispatcher.
• Analysis of the meteorological report.
• Search and collection of all the wreckage of the aircraft.
• Tests of similar models of technology in simulators.
• Analysis of pilots' personal files and identification of possible psychological factors that have influenced the fact of the disaster.
• Checking passengers and cargo according to the documentation to exclude or confirm the version of the terrorist act.
• Survey of survivors and eyewitnesses of the tragedy, viewing the video of the incident.
• Pathological anatomy of corpses.

Statistics of air crashes by country

The statistics of the number of accidents with civil aircraft are widely led by the United States. So, from 1945 to 2013, more than seven hundred accidents with human casualties happened in the United States. The statistics of aviation accidents for the same period show that the number of passengers and crew killed in disasters amounted to ten and a half thousand people.

Russia in the sad statistics is located on the second line. Canada, Brazil, Colombia, Great Britain, France, India, Indonesia and Mexico are also among the top ten countries in the number of accidents and disasters. The big gap of the USA from other states in the rating is explained by the fact that the USA accounted for 28% of civilian aircraft flights in the world.

The largest catastrophe in Russia

There have also been major accidents in Russia. The most terrible tragedy in terms of the number of victims was the collision of a Tu-154 aircraft carrying out a flight along the Krasnodar-Novosibirsk route through Omsk, with three official airport machines on the runway in 1984. As a result of the incident, the plane collapsed, out of 179 people on the plane, only five survived.

Some sources call the largest on the territory of Russia a disaster border incident near Sakhalin Island in 1983. After a double violation of the USSR border, a South Korean Boeing 747 was shot down. The death toll was 269 people.

The largest catastrophe in the USSR

Accidents of the USSR have one hundred or more dead in only three cases in the history of Soviet aviation. The largest incident is the fall of the Tu-154 near Uchkuduk, on the territory of Uzbekistan. The plane carried out a passenger flight along the route Karshi-Ufa-Leningrad, but forty-six minutes after take-off the ship lost control and got into a tailspin. The cause of the tragic incident was the error of management. According to another version, the regime of pilots' rest was violated. Killed all two hundred people who were on board.

The attacks of September 11, 2001 in the USA

The two biggest accidents in the world are incidents with flights 11 to Boston-Los Angeles and 175 to Logan-Los Angeles, which were captured by terrorists and sent to the towers of the World Trade Center with a difference of 17 minutes. In the first aircraft (Boeing 767-223ER) there were 92 passengers, pilots and flight attendants, including 5 hijackers, in the second - 65 people, including 5 hijackers. As a result of the first collision in total, about 1,692 people (passengers and crew of the plane, terrorists, people who were in the WTC and rescuers) died, after the second victim there were still about 965 people.

Collision at the airport of Los Rodeos

Another major aviation accident happened in late March 1977 in the Canary Islands. On the runway collided two "Boeing", carrying out flights on the routes Amsterdam - Las Palmas and Los Angeles - Las Palmas through New York. The official cause of the disaster was that the investigation recognized an incorrect interpretation of the dispatcher's commands and crew errors. As a result of the incident, 583 people were killed.

Catastrophe of Boeing 747 near Tokyo

In 1985, aviation accidents were replenished with yet another tragic incident in Tokyo. The plane, which was carrying out the domestic flight of Tokyo-Osaka, lost its tail stabilizer twelve minutes after take-off, as a result of which it lost control and crashed into the mountain 112 kilometers from the capital of Japan.

Of the 524 people who were on board, only four survived. Many passengers died not at the moment of impact, but on the ground - from hypothermia and received injuries. Perhaps if help had come earlier (four survivors discovered fourteen hours after the crash), some of them would have been saved.

The clash over Charhi Dadri

The first in terms of the number of casualties in a plane crash in the air is a catastrophe - the collapse of the Boeing 747-168B of Saudi Arabia Airlines and Kazakhstan Airlines. The incident occurred in the sky over the Indian city of Charkhi Dadri. In the accident, 349 people were killed on board both aircraft. Among the victims of the incident are citizens of India, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, the United States, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Great Britain (to reduce the death toll).

The official commission recognized the reasons for the incident as:

• Poor knowledge of English flight attendants and aircraft pilots;
• Insufficient skill of pilots and unsatisfactory performance of duties by the crew;
• Lack of standard professional phraseology among pilots;
• There is only one corridor for take-offs and landings;
• Lack of radar at the airport in Indian Delhi.

Turkish Airlines crash near Paris

The catastrophe over Paris occurred in early March 1973. The Turkish airline operated a flight on the Istanbul-London route through Paris, when the cargo compartment door opened six minutes after take-off. The plane lost control and fell into small pieces when it fell. Killed all who were on board, i.e. 334 passengers and twelve crew members.

Terror over the Atlantic Ocean

The terrorist act, which occurred in 1985 over the Atlantic Ocean, claimed the lives of 329 people. The plane crash occurred in neutral waters, the plane disintegrated into splinters due to an explosion in the cargo hold. Responsibility for the incident was taken over by three extremist groups in the United States and Canada.

Catastrophe of Saudi Arabian Airlines in Riyadh

In 1980, a Saudi Arabian airline operated a flight along the Karachi-Riyadh-Jeddah route. A few minutes after take-off, there was a fire on the board. The crew of the aircraft managed to make an emergency landing, but rescue work began only twenty-three minutes after landing. Flight attendants could not open the doors and begin evacuation, and airport services took time to understand the appropriate instruction in English. As a result of the delay, all 287 passengers and fourteen crew members were killed.

The tragedy over Donetsk in 2014

The largest air crash of the twenty-first century in the post-Soviet space occurred in the summer of 2014 over the territory of armed confrontation between government forces and formations of the Donetsk People's Republic. Boeing 777, carrying out a flight on the route Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpur (the capital of Malaysia), was shot down from the self-propelled antiaircraft complex Buk. The search operation and the investigation of the incident were complicated by the fact that the area where the plane fell fell between the two fronts.

As a result of the disaster, 298 people died. The flight was used by the press secretary of the World Health Organization, Senator from the Labor Party of the Netherlands, the Australian writer, participants in the conference of the International AIDS Society. The incident was a significant factor in the introduction of new sanctions against Russia, affected the stock indices and bankruptcy of the company Malaysia Airlines.

Accident of cargo AN-32 in Zaire

A dozen of the largest accidents are covered by the incident with cargo AN-32, which occurred in Zaire. The plane could not get into the air and crashed into the market, which was very near the runway. As a result of the incident, the air mechanic on board the aircraft was killed and 297 people on the ground, among whom were mostly women and children. Of the death toll, only 66 people were identified.