The plane, although considered the safestmode 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.
Flight Accident Classification
Aircraft accidents and incidentsclassified according to several criteria. There are ground and flight accidents. Ground incidents are those that occurred before or after the flight. Aviation accidents are those disasters that are related to the flight crew’s performance by the crew.
In addition, there are breakdowns, accidents and catastrophes.Breakdown leads to minor damage to the aircraft, there are no victims and injuries. An accident is an incident that did not cause death of people, as a result of which the aircraft suffers significant damage or collapses. Disasters are accidents that are characterized by:
- damage to the aircraft so that repairs are not economically feasible or impossible, the complete destruction of the aircraft;
- death of passengers or crew members, as well as people from among those aboard during the next 30 days from the moment of the incident.
Causes of accidents
The most common cause of aviationdisasters are pilot errors, i.e. the human factor. In 42% of cases, for other reasons, accidents occur. Disaster factors are distributed as follows:
- 58% of incidents that resulted in the death of one or more passengers or crew members occur due to pilot errors.
- 22% of tragic cases occur due to equipment failure.
- 12% of accidents occur in adverse weather conditions during the flight.
- 9% of accidents happen due to terrorist attacks.
- 7% are accounted for by airport ground staff errors.
- 1% of aviation incidents occur due to the influence of another kind of causes.
Accidents and incidents causedwhich the human factor was established, in 29% of cases occurred by accidental coincidence of circumstances, due to carelessness or forgetfulness of the pilots, 16% were due to errors caused by difficult meteorological conditions, in 5% of cases the cause of the accident was the failure of the equipment.
Air Crash Investigation Techniques
Every tragic air incidentthe vessel is subject to mandatory review and analysis. The rules for investigating accidents and incidents imply the prompt establishment of a rapid response team composed of specialists from areas directly or indirectly related to this field. In the future, the case is transferred to the commission for the investigation of the accident or accident in Russia, the National Transportation Security Council in the United States or other services.
Analysis of accidents and incidents involves the following steps:
- Search for the main four parts of the aircraft to determine whether the aircraft crashed on the ground or disintegrated in the air.
- Search and listen to flight recorders.
- Check of negotiations of pilots with the dispatcher.
- Analysis of meteorological reports.
- Search and collect all the wreckage of the aircraft.
- Tests of similar models of equipment in simulators.
- Analysis of the personal files of the pilots and the identification of possible psychological factors that influenced the fact of the disaster.
- Verification of passengers and cargo according to the documentation in order to exclude or confirm the version of the attack.
- Survey of survivors and eyewitnesses of the tragedy, watching a video of what happened.
- Pathology of the corpses.
Air crash statistics by country
Statistics of the number of civilian accidentsAircraft with a large margin headed by the United States. So, from 1945 to 2013 in the United States, more than seven hundred accidents happened with fatalities. Accident statistics for the same period show that the number of passengers and crew members killed in the crash was ten and a half thousand.
Russia in the sad statistics is located onsecond line. Canada, Brazil, Colombia, Great Britain, France, India, Indonesia and Mexico are also among the top ten countries in terms of accidents and disasters. The large gap between the United States and other countries in the ranking is explained by the fact that the share of the States accounted for 28% of civil aircraft departures in the world.
The largest disaster in Russia
There have been major accidents and onthe territory of Russia. The most terrible tragedy in terms of the number of victims was the collision of a Tu-154 plane that was operating a flight en route Krasnodar-Novosibirsk through Omsk, with three airport service vehicles on the runway in 1984. As a result of the accident, the plane collapsed, out of 179 people on the plane, only five survived.
Некоторые источники называют крупнейшей на the territory of Russia disaster border incident off Sakhalin Island in 1983. After a double violation of the USSR border, the South Korean Boeing 747 was shot down. The death toll was 269.
The largest catastrophe in the USSR
USSR aviation incidents have a hundred or morekilled in only three cases in the history of Soviet aviation. The largest incident is the fall of the Tu-154 near Uchkuduk, in Uzbekistan. The board made a passenger flight on the route Karshi-Ufa-Leningrad, but forty-six minutes after takeoff, the vessel lost control and entered into a tailspin. The cause of the tragic accident was a control error. According to another version, the pilots rest mode was violated. All two hundred people on board were killed.
The attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States
The two largest aviation victimsIncidents in the world are incidents with flights 11 Boston - Los Angeles and 175 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, among whom there were also 5 hijackers. As a result of the first collision, in total about 1 692 people died (passengers and crew of the plane, terrorists, people who were in the World Trade Center and rescuers), after the second one about 965 people became victims.
Collision at Los Rodeos Airport
Another major accidenthappened at the end of March 1977 in the Canary Islands. Two Boeings collided on the runway, flying on the routes Amsterdam - Las Palmas and Los Angeles - Las Palmas through New York. The official reason for the crash was that the investigation acknowledged the misinterpretation of the dispatcher’s commands and the mistakes of the crew. As a result of the accident killed 583 people.
The crash of Boeing 747 near Tokyo
In 1985, accidents were replenishedanother tragic incident in Tokyo. The plane, carrying out the domestic flight of Tokyo-Osaka, lost the tail stabilizer twelve minutes after takeoff, as a result of which he 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 injuries received. Perhaps, if help arrived earlier (four survivors were discovered fourteen hours after the crash), some of them could have been saved.
Clash over Charkhi Dadri
The first in the number of casualties in the collision of aircraftairborne disaster - the crash of a Boeing 747-168B airline of Saudi Arabian Airlines and an aircraft of Kazakhstan Airlines. The incident occurred in the sky over the Indian city of Charkhi Dadri. The crash killed 349 people aboard both aircraft. Among the victims of the incident are citizens of India, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, the United States, Pakistan, Bangladesh and the United Kingdom (to reduce the number of deaths).
The reasons for the incident, the official commission recognized such factors:
- poor knowledge of English flight attendants and aircraft pilots;
- lack of skill pilots and poor performance of duties by the crew;
- lack of standard professional phraseology among pilots;
- only a single corridor for takeoffs and landings;
- lack of radar at Indian Delhi Airport.
Turkish Airlines crash near Paris
The catastrophe over Paris occurred in early March.1973 A Turkish Airlines airliner was flying the Istanbul-London route via Paris when the cargo door opened six minutes after takeoff. The plane lost control and collapsed into small fragments in the fall. All aboard were killed, i.e. 334 passengers and twelve crew members.
Terrorist attack over the atlantic ocean
Террористический акт, произошедший в 1985 году over the Atlantic Ocean, claimed the lives of 329 people. The crash occurred in neutral waters, the plane broke up into fragments as a result of an explosion in the cargo hold. Responsibility for the incident took over at once three extremist groups in the United States and Canada.
Accident of Saudi Arabian Airlines in Riyadh
In 1980, the aircraft was an airline of Saudi Arabiaserved a flight on the route Karachi - Riyadh - Jeddah. A few minutes after takeoff, a fire occurred on board. The crew of the aircraft was able to make an emergency landing, but rescue work began only twenty-three minutes after landing. The flight attendants were unable to open the doors and begin evacuation, and the airport services took time to understand the relevant instructions in English. As a result of the delay, all 287 passengers and fourteen crew members died.
Tragedy over Donetsk in 2014
Largest air crash of the twenty first centuryin the post-Soviet space occurred in the summer of 2014 over the territory of the armed confrontation between the government forces and the units of the Donetsk People's Republic. The Boeing 777, flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur (the capital of Malaysia), was shot down from a Buk self-propelled anti-aircraft complex. The search operation and the investigation of the incident were complicated by the fact that the area where the plane fell was located between two fronts.
As a result of the disaster killed 298 people.The spokesperson of the World Health Organization, the senator from the Netherlands Labor Party, the Australian writer, and the participants of the conference of the International Society for the Fight against AIDS took advantage of the flight. The incident was a significant factor in the introduction of new sanctions against Russia, influenced stock indexes and the bankruptcy of Malaysia Airlines.
Accident of cargo AN-32 in Zaire
Десятку крупнейших авиационных происшествий closes the incident with the cargo AN-32, which occurred in Zaire. The plane could not rise into the air and crashed into the market, which was very close to the runway. As a result of the accident, a flight mechanic died on board the aircraft, and 297 people on the ground, among whom were mostly women and children. Of the dead, only 66 were identified.
