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It's a well known fact that we’re safer
traveling in the sky than we are traveling
on land – or so they say.
When disaster strikes in the sky, the results
are often, as we shall see, devastating.
Air disasters are headline news, and so they
should be.
What could be worse than a dream vacation
turning into a nightmare when the controls
fail in the cockpit and the cabin suddenly
lunges towards terra firma.
Or sometimes you’re not even safe from air
disaster while on the ground - a cargo plane
simply drops from the sky into the crowded
market where you were peacefully shopping
for groceries.
What happens when your passenger jets strays
into military airspace and missiles start
flying past the passenger windows?
Here for your viewing pleasure is a list of
some of the deadliest airline disasters ever,
on this episode of the Infographics Show – The
Top Ten Worst Airplane Accidents.
On September 1st, 1983, Korean Airlines flight
007 departed Anchorage, Alaska, bound for
Seoul.
At some point during the flight, the plane
strayed off course and veered towards the
Soviet Union.
Relations between the US and the Soviet Union
weren’t peachy at the time and this proved
to be one of the more tense points of the
cold war.
As the plane steered off course towards the
Soviet Union, things became critical.
With soviet missile tests scheduled for that
day, the Soviets must have been feeling trigger
happy and paranoid.
As the flight entered their airspace, it was
shot down killing all 269 passengers onboard.
The Soviets later admitted they misidentified
the aircraft for a spy plane, which is understandable,
considering the political tensions, and the
weapons testing, at the time.
American Airlines flight 191 was doomed from
the start.
The engine broke away during takeoff at O’Hare
airport in 1979, taking a large section of
the wing with it.
The aircraft rolled and crashed into a field,
taking out a nearby trailer park, killing
two bystanders in the process.
All 273 passengers and crew were killed in
this deadly disaster.
Iran Air.
Flight 655 was a heading from Tehran to Dubai
on July 3rd 1988 when disaster struck.
The Airbus A300 was destroyed by an SM-2MR
surface-to-air missile fired from a United
States missile cruiser.
All 290 passengers, including 66 children,
were killed with no survivors.
The flight was shot down over the Persian
Gulf during the Iran / Iraq war when forces
mistook it for an Iranian F-14A Tomcat flying
towards them.
Iran remains firm in its belief that this
was no accident and was in fact an international
crime.
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was involved in
a similar incident over eastern Ukraine when
the Boeing 777-200 flying from Amsterdam to
Kuala Lumpur was targeted and shot down close
to the Russian border.
All 298 passengers were killed in the accident.
Some airlines had begun to avoid the Ukrainian
airspace following the Crimean crisis in early
2014, but some carriers, such as Malaysia
Airlines, had yet to change their routes.
The Air Africa incident at N’Dolo airport
in the Democratic Republic of Congo was one
of the most deadly for people on the ground.
In 1996, an overloaded Air Africa cargo aircraft
struggled to take off, but just kept rolling
at speed, overshooting the runway.
The flight, which was possibly overloaded
with weapons, failed to reach the correct
speed for takeoff.
With increased speed, the plane crashed into
a marketplace and exploded into a ball of
flame killing between 225 and 348 people and
injuring some 500 others.
This takes the dubious prize of being the
flight to have caused the largest number of
non-passenger deaths caused by the accidental
crash of an aircraft.
Air India flight 182 occurred on June 23rd
1985 and was deemed the deadliest aviation
terror attack at the time.
The Air India Boeing 747, bound from Toronto
to Sahar International Airport, crashed off
the coast of Ireland following the explosion
of a device placed in the cargo hold by a
Mr. “M Singh,’ thought to be of the Sikh
extremists Babbar Khalsa.
A second device intended to explode simultaneously
on another flight went off early in the terminal
building at Narita Airport, Japan.
Flying from Istanbul to London via Paris,
Turkish Air Flight 981 had an unusually large
number of passengers onboard.
As they fly over Meuz, France in 1974, passengers
heard a muffled explosion followed by a rush
of air as the cargo door separated from the
plane.
Pilots fought to control the plane for just
over a minute before crashing into the Ermenonville
forest killing all 346 passengers.
At the time, this was the deadliest plane
crash in aviation history.
In 1996, A Kazakhstan modified military plane
carrying 27 passengers and 10 crew descended
to land at Delhi Airport.
The crew was cleared by air traffic control
to descend to 4600, but due to their limited
English, they didn’t realize they were to
stay at that altitude.
They kept descending and collided into a Saudi
Arabian passenger airplane.
The tail of the plane cut through the other’s
wing, and the Saudi Arabian passenger Boeing
crashed killing all 349 onboard.
All passengers and crew onboard the Kazakhstani
plane were also killed, either during the
crash-landing or later on at the hospital.
520 passengers were killed on Japan Airlines
Flight 123 in 1985.
Shortly after the flight took off, the rear
bulkhead failed, tearing off the rudder and
destroying the hydraulic system, meaning that
the pilot had zero control of the flight apart
from the use of thrust.
The pilot attempted to return to Tokyo, then
he tried to land at an army base, but the
plane would refuse to be controlled before
it crashed into mountains.
4 people survived the crash and the night
that followed.
It is unknown how many of the 520 dead were
killed on the initial impact of the crash.
Search parties found the wreckage and the
4 remaining survivors the next day.
The 1977 Tenerife Disaster claimed 583 lives
with 61 survivors.
Following a terrorist bombing at Gran Canaria’
international airport, flights including KLM
4805 and Pan Am 1736 were diverted to Los
Rodeos.
The much smaller airport quickly became congested
with parked aircraft blocking the taxiway,
and forced departing aircraft to use the runway.
The weather conditions, which were harsh with
patches of dense fog across the airfield,
prevent aircraft from seeing one another clearly.
The KLM flight accelerated to initiate take-off
while Pan Am flight 1736 was still on the
runway.
The impact of the two planes colliding and
the ensuing explosion and fireball killed
everyone onboard the KLM flight and the majority
of those onboard the Pan Am flight, except
for the 61 who survived.
With 583 lives lost, this accident is the
deadliest to date.
As terrible as these accidents are, just remember
that, statistically speaking, you’re still
more likely to get yourself killed in the
cab on the way to the airport, rather than
on the airplane itself.
And if you ever need to save somebody’s
life, you should probably know how to perform
CPR and First Aid.
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a Life!
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So, have you been on a terrible flight lately
that had you thinking it might be your last?
Tell us about it in the comments!
Also, be sure to check out our other video
called What if Ebola infected the whole World?!
Thanks for watching, and, as always, don’t
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See you next time!
