Aviation accidents and incidents

An aviation accident is when something goes very wrong during a flight and can hurt people or damage the plane. An aviation incident is when something unsafe happens, but it does not turn into an accident. The most important job of aviation safety is to stop these from happening. Learning about these events helps us make flying even safer for everyone.

Bad weather, like strong winds, storms, icing, and poor visibility, can sometimes cause problems for planes. By understanding these weather challenges, pilots, engineers, and safety experts work together to build better planes and create safer flying rules.

By looking at what happened in the past, experts can make training, technology, and rules better. This careful learning has made air travel much safer over time, even though flying is still a wonderful and complicated adventure.

Definitions

According to the rules for international civil aviation, an aviation accident is when something bad happens during a flight that hurts people or damages the plane badly. An aviation incident is when something almost dangerous happens but does not turn into an accident.

A hull loss happens when a plane is damaged so badly it cannot be fixed, or it is lost and cannot be found.

History

One of the earliest recorded aviation accidents happened on May 10, 1785, when a hot air balloon crashed in Tullamore, County Offaly, Ireland, and started a fire that damaged the town. The first accident with a powered aircraft occurred on September 17, 1908, when a Wright Model A crashed at Fort Myer, Virginia, USA. The pilot, Orville Wright, was injured, and the passenger, Signal Corps Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge, was killed.

The years from 1958 to 1968 saw fast growth in aviation. During this time, safety improved a lot, and new ways to study accidents were developed. In 1963, a school for studying aircraft accidents opened in Oklahoma City. In January 1965, a meeting in Montreal, Canada, helped make rules for accident investigations around the world.

Accident Investigation Team from the Civil Aeronautics Board with Director, Bobbie R. Allen – about 1965

On September 11, 2001, four airplanes were hijacked and crashed in coordinated attacks. The crashes destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City and damaged the Pentagon in Virginia. Another plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. Many people lost their lives.

The Tenerife airport disaster on March 27, 1977, was a very sad accident. Many people died when a KLM Boeing 747 crashed into a taxiing Pan Am 747 at Los Rodeos Airport on the Canary Island of Tenerife, Spain. This accident helped change how pilots and air traffic controllers talk to each other.

The crash of Japan Air Lines Flight 123 on August 12, 1985, was also very sad. Many people died when a Boeing 747 crashed into a mountain after losing much of its control.

Other crashes with death tolls of 200 or more

Safety

Main article: Aviation safety

Aviation safety has gotten much better over the last hundred years. Today, two big companies make passenger airplanes: Boeing in the United States and Airbus in Europe. Both companies work very hard on safety because it is very important for them.

Some key safety tools in modern airplanes include slides for quick exits, advanced avionics with computer alerts, strong turbine engines, and special landing gear that works even without power. When we look at how many accidents happen for every distance traveled, flying is one of the safest ways to travel. It is much safer than driving a car or taking the train. However, when we look at how many accidents happen for every person carried, buses are the safest, followed by trains, then airplanes.

Statistics

The Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives (B3A) in Geneva, Switzerland, collects data about aviation accidents for planes that can carry more than six passengers. They do not count helicopters, balloons, or combat planes.

The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) reviews aviation safety each year. They look at statistics for different types of flights and planes, using information from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and other sources. Most of their data focuses on larger planes, but they also collect information about smaller planes from member states.

Investigation

Annex 13 of the Chicago Convention has rules for how countries look into aviation accidents and incidents. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) works to stop these events from happening.

Each country has its own group to look into aviation accidents. For example, in Australia, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau does this. In Canada, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) handles it. The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) is in charge in China. These groups try to find out what caused an accident so that more accidents can be prevented. Countries like France, Germany, and Japan also have their own special groups for this work.

Retirement of flight numbers

When an airplane crash causes serious harm or loss of life, airlines sometimes stop using the flight number to honor those affected. For example, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, Korean Air Lines Flight 007, Air India Flight 171, and the flights from the September 11 attacks all had their numbers retired by the airlines. But this does not always happen; some airlines keep using the same flight numbers even after accidents.