Top 10 Plane Crashes that Most Shocked the World

On March 8, 2014, a Boeing 777 carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew took off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia, heading for Beijing in China. Shortly after takeoff, contact with ATC was lost, but the plane remained on military radar. That was short-lived as well, as the plane disappeared from military radar.

More mysteriously, shortly after the disappearance, communications were sent from where the plane was last tracked. This lasted until 9:15 in the morning MYT. The last communication was near Australia in the southern Indian Ocean. Then, nothing.

Before they learned about the communications, search and rescue was sent to the last location that Flight 370 was tracked on ATC radar, and they found nothing. Then they started searching in the Indian Ocean. This continued for nearly three years until the search was called off in 2017.

However, after a year of nothing found, on July 29, 2015, several pieces of marine debris were found on the beach of Reunion Island. The Malaysian government confirmed this to be from the aircraft.

The cause of the disappearance is unknown, as the wreckage was never found. The believable causes for the crash include pilot suicide, hypoxia, cyberattack, etc.

Shortly after Flight 370 disappeared, things were about to get uglier. On July 17, 2014, a Boeing 777 carrying 283 passengers and 15 crew disappeared from radar over Ukraine. Unlike Flight 370, they did manage to find the plane, but it was destroyed and in ruins. Bodies were scattered, and the site looked like a warzone.

After a year of investigation, the final report was released and concluded that the accident was an accidental shoot-down by pro-Russian insurgents.

On September 8, 1994, a Boeing 737-300 was traveling from Chicago to Palm Beach with a stopover in Pittsburgh, carrying 127 passengers and 5 crew members.

Flight 427 was approaching Pittsburgh at 6,000 feet when the plane encountered wake turbulence from a Boeing 727 operated by Delta Air Lines. Suddenly, the plane banked to the left, entered an aerodynamic stall, and crashed nose-first into the ground.

It took the NTSB four and a half years to investigate the accident. The NTSB concluded that the rudder, which controls the direction of the aircraft, had malfunctioned and went hard-over in a direction opposite to that commanded by the pilots.

Three years earlier, a Boeing 737-200 operated by United Airlines, with 20 passengers and 5 crew, had suffered the same fate, but instead banked to the right and crashed into a park. The original investigation was unable to determine the cause. However, after the final report on USAir Flight 427, the case was reopened, and in 2001, the final report of the accident concluded that it also had a rudder hardover.

Nearly two years after Flight 427, an Eastwind Airlines Boeing 737 also experienced a rudder hardover in mid-flight but managed to land the aircraft. Only the flight attendant was injured.

Following these accidents, Boeing reportedly spent $500 million upgrading all their thousands of Boeing 737s.

On November 12, 2001, an Airbus A300 operated by American Airlines with 251 passengers took off from JFK International Airport. While climbing, the plane encountered wake turbulence from a Boeing 747 operated by Japan Airlines. Suddenly, the plane pitched downwards and plummeted into a neighborhood in Queens, New York. The engines broke off from the wings and crashed into the neighborhood, killing all 260 on board along with five people on the ground.

Since this took place in New York, just two months after the September 11 attacks, fear arose that the attack was being repeated, and buildings around New York were evacuated. Worse, terrorists initially claimed it was a terrorist attack. The FBI was even involved in the investigation. However, after the vertical fin was found miles away in a river, the terrorism theory was dismissed.

The probable cause of the accident was that when the plane encountered wake turbulence, the co-pilot stressed the rudder with unnecessary inputs, causing the vertical fin to snap off and the plane to go into a dive.

March 27, 1977, was the day that would scar and haunt aviation permanently.

At Los Rodeos Airport (now called Tenerife-North Airport), a Boeing 747 operated by Pan Am, carrying 380 passengers and 16 crew, was on a runway about to turn onto a taxiway when the pilots noticed a KLM Boeing 747 carrying 234 passengers and 14 crew heading for them. The KLM crew noticed this as well and attempted to take off. They suffered a tailstrike but managed to get airborne. However, it was too late. The KLM aircraft collided with the Pan Am, stalled, and hit the ground 500 feet away from the collision point. Since the KLM aircraft was full of fuel, it ignited, killing all 248 passengers and crew.

Despite killing 335 passengers and crew on the Pan Am, 61 passengers and crew seated in the front section survived, including the captain, first officer, and flight engineer. However, 583 people were killed in the accident.

The cause of the accident was the KLM captain's decision to take off in the mistaken belief that the ATC had cleared him for take-off. Another contributing factor was the low visibility, as the airport was filled with fog. The disaster remains the worst in aviation history.

On June 30, 1956, it was a normal day for air traffic controllers until they lost contact with both United Airlines Flight 718, a Douglas DC-7 aircraft heading for Chicago Midway Airport with 53 passengers and 5 crew members, and Trans World Airlines Flight 2, a Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation heading for Kansas City Downtown Airport with 64 passengers and 6 crew members, over the Grand Canyon. They had no idea what happened to both aircraft until a search team found both planes wrecked and destroyed.

After investigating, it was concluded that both planes had collided at 21,000 feet because they could not see each other due to the design of the cockpit windows. Additionally, there was no way for the ATC to know about the collision due to an inadequate system and the lack of technology back then.

The DC-7 had clipped the Constellation's vertical stabilizer and struck the fuselage, causing the TWA plane's empennage to break up, enter a dive, and crash into the ground, killing all 70 on board. The DC-7 remained in the air but was descending rapidly and was impossible to recover. The plane then slammed into a cliff, killing all 58 on board.

The accident led to the formation of the FAA, and the ATC system was upgraded across the USA, costing $250 million.

On April 10, 2010, a Tu-154 operated by the Polish Air Force, carrying the President of Poland Lech Kaczynski and 88 other important figures of Poland, failed to arrive during approach in Smolensk, Russia. After a search and rescue mission was launched, all they found was debris and human remains. None of the 96 people on board survived.

Fear spread that the crash was a political assassination, as the plane was carrying Polish politicians and relatives of victims who perished in the Katyn massacre. However, what actually happened was an accidental crash. During approach, the pilots failed to conduct the approach safely in low visibility. The plane ended up clipping a tree and crashing upside down, killing all 96 people on board.

On October 31, 1999, a Boeing 767 carrying 203 passengers and 14 crew members took off from John F. Kennedy Airport and was heading for Cairo International Airport in Egypt. Shortly after takeoff, the plane suddenly vanished from radar. After a while of trying to communicate, the ATC asked other planes nearby to head to the location where Flight 990 was last tracked. They reported nothing unusual.

At sunrise, search and rescue ships found debris and body parts floating. None of the 217 people on board survived.

After a two-year investigation, the final report by the NTSB was released. They concluded that the crash was due to the co-pilot relief's deliberate actions of putting the plane in a dive while the captain was outside the cockpit. The captain managed to get back in the cockpit. The only words that the co-pilot had said were "I rely on God." However, the Egyptian government disputed the report and had its own investigators do the job. They concluded that the crash was due to a mechanical failure of the elevator's control system.

Since then, the crash has strained relations between the United States and Egypt.

On October 31, 2015, an Airbus A321 operated by Metrojet, carrying 217 passengers and 7 crew members, took off from Sharm El Sheikh International Airport. Suddenly, the plane disappeared from radar at 6:13 EST. When Egyptian authorities investigated, all they found was the destroyed aircraft. The tail was found 5 kilometers away from the main crash site, indicating that the plane had broken up mid-flight.

Shortly after, the terrorist group ISIL claimed responsibility, stating that the aircraft was bombed. At first, investigators disagreed, as there was information that the plane had suffered a tail strike on landing on November 16, 2001. However, more news from ISIL circulated, claiming that a Schweppes can filled with TNT had caused the plane to break up. After investigating this, it was confirmed that ISIL had, in fact, bombed the airliner heading for Russia.

As of 2017, the final report has yet to be released.

I flew on this plane to Ukraine a few years after this happened. It's pretty tragic what occurred. May the people who died rest in peace.

Despite only killing 75 people, this accident is notable due to a very unusual factor.

On March 23, 1994, an Airbus A310 carrying 63 passengers and 12 crew members crashed 20 kilometers off Mezhdurechensk, Russia. The crash was a blow for Aeroflot, as they had added aircraft from other countries to decrease the chance of another crash. (Aeroflot had had a very poor safety record for many decades, resulting in the deaths of 8,000 passengers and crew.)

The investigation into this accident revealed a chilling and very unusual factor: the captain had allowed his children to sit in his seat. His daughter refused to sit in the seat any longer, allowing the 15-year-old son to take her place. He unknowingly disengaged the autopilot, causing the plane to enter a steep bank. The plane recovered, but the first officer overcorrected by pulling up too much, causing it to stall. The plane nearly recovered again but ultimately crashed into a field, killing all 75 people on board.

Personal fun fact to add: My parents were in Russia at the time of the accident. When they heard about the crash, they refused to fly with Aeroflot and ended up staying there for 10 months before returning safely to Germany in late 1995.

On March 3, 1974, a DC-10 operated by Turkish Airlines carrying 334 passengers and 12 crew suddenly went down in a forest in Oise, France. The plane suffered explosive decompression and crashed, killing all 346 passengers and crew. At that point, the crash was the worst in aviation history. The wreckage was so fragmented that it was difficult to determine whether any parts of the aircraft were missing before it crashed. Only nine bodies were never identified.

The investigation concluded that the plane's cargo door was improperly secured and ended up breaking off, causing the explosive decompression and also damaging most of the control systems, rendering the plane uncontrollable and impossible to recover from.

Another thing to mention: Back in 1972, an American Airlines DC-10's cargo door also broke off, but the plane managed to safely land in Detroit, saving the lives of all 67 people on board, although 11 people were injured.