On Tuesday this week, a Japan Airlines Airbus A350 passenger jet collided with another plane as it landed at Haneda Airport in Tokyo. Five people on board the other plane died when the two planes crashed on the runway.
The accident is not the first, and it probably will not be the last. Here are some of the deadliest aircraft accidents in history:
The tragedy in Tenerife
On March 27, 1977, two Boeing 747s belonging to Pan Am and KLM crashed on the runway at Los Rodeos Airport on the island of Tenerife. The airport was covered in thick fog as the KLM flight captain accelerated his jumbo jet onto the runway. Below was a Pan Am plane. Due to the fog, the KLM crew could not see the plane until it was too late. The ensuing collision claimed the lives of 593 people. 61 people survived the deadliest plane crash in history.
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Something went wrong on that fateful day. As a result of an explosion at Las Palmas Airport and threats of more bombs, air traffic was diverted to Tenerife Airport, which was not really designed to handle that much traffic.
In addition, there were a number of misunderstandings in communication between the air traffic controller and the two aircraft's crews, which ended with the KLM aircraft attempting to take off at the same time as the Pan Am aircraft was on the runway.
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Remains of a KLM plane in Tenerife. All those on board this plane were killed. Photo: AP/NTP
The most serious single accident
During a flight between the Japanese cities of Tokyo and Osaka on August 12, 1985, a Boeing 747 went down. The crew encountered problems twelve minutes after takeoff, but they kept the plane in the air for a little more than half an hour before the disaster became reality. 520 died in the accident. Four of them escaped with serious injuries. According to the Accident Investigation Committee that investigated the accident, the accident was likely due to damage to the aircraft's fuselage, which led to problems controlling the aircraft. This accident is one of the deadliest aircraft accidents, as it involved only one aircraft.
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Collision over India
On November 12, 1996, 349 people died when two planes crashed in mid-air over India. The planes were a Boeing 747 and an Ilyushin Il-76 from Saudi Arabian Airlines and Kazakhstan Airlines, respectively. The two planes were on their way to the Indian cities of Dhahran and Delhi when things got worse. The Accident Investigation Board, which investigated the incident, points to a communications misunderstanding that led to the Kazakhstan Airlines plane landing at the wrong altitude.
No one survived the accident.
Watch the video: Plane crash in Greece
The cargo door was opened – 346 people died
On March 3, 1974, something went wrong as a Turkish Airlines flight was en route from Istanbul to London via Paris. Outside the French capital, the crew lost control of the DC-10 plane after the cargo door opened while the plane was in flight. The unexpected opening resulted in an explosive decompression that damaged the cables used to control the aircraft's rudder surfaces. The plane crashed with 346 people on board.
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The design of the cargo doors was blamed for the accident because the design made the doors more vulnerable to pressure differences between the interior of the aircraft and the outside air at high altitudes. Until the Tenerife incident, this was the deadliest plane crash in history.
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The Operafjell accident is the plane crash that claimed the highest number of lives on Norwegian territory. Here are parts of the plane wreckage over Operafjellet in August 1996. Photo: Alexander Nordahl / NTB archive photo
The worst plane crash on Norwegian soil
Here in Norway too, there have been a number of plane accidents over the years. The worst happened in Svalbard on August 29, 1996. A total of 141 Russians and Ukrainians were killed when a Russian Tupolev 154M crashed in Obravelt while on approach to Longyearbyen.
The passenger plane was chartered by a Russian mining company. On board were miners and their families returning to work after the holiday.
Faulty navigation has been identified as the cause.
Despite the high death toll, planes that crashed in connection with the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001 were not included in the article. The reason for this is that it was destroyed as a result of the will of terrorists.
sources: ABC News Archive / Incident Reports / Wikipedia
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