15 of the Most Mysterious Airline Tragedies
EgyptAir Flight 804
Photo: Alexander Babashov / flickr / CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0EgyptAir Flight 804 mysteriously went missing over the Mediterranean Sea in the early hours of May 19, 2016. It disappeared from radar with 66 people on board, after taking off from Paris toward its destination in Cairo. Greek air traffic controllers were the last officials in contact with the flight. They said that it swerved sharply then plunged from 37,000 feet into the Mediterranean shortly after entering Cairo airspace. Egypt's own civil aviation minister said in a press conference that he believed the crash was more likely a result of terrorist action than mechanical difficulties.Malaysia Airlines MH370
Photo: Zennie Abraham / FlickrMarch 2014: Malaysia Airlines MH370 is the most recent cause for concern. The flight left Malaysia on Friday, March 7, 2014. To date, the flight still hasn't been found. The latest news suggests that the flight veered away from its path, and could have disappeared somewhere en route towards India. New details constantly emerge, but the mystery remains.
UPDATE (7/29/15)
A piece of a wing from a Boeing 777, the same model as MH370, has washed ashore on the island of Reunion, in the Indian Ocean.
If the wing piece, which appears to have been in the ocean for over a year, does indeed belong to the missing aircraft, it would dramatically shift the scope of the search and recovery operation currently being run by the Australian government.
Another piece of debris turned up off the coast of Tanzania in June 2016. The wreckage may be from Malaysia Airlines MH370.
UPDATE 6.27.2016- Photo: u/klassixx / RedditAmelia Earhart was an aviation innovator. She was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. She sought to top that record by circumnavigating the globe. In 1937, she left on the journey. In her last radio transmission, somewhere in the South Pacific, she said she couldn't find the airstrip and that she was almost out of gas. She was never heard from again, and her plane still has never been recovered.
EgyptAir Flight 990
In 1999, a Cairo-bound flight crashed sixty miles into the ocean off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts. 217 passengers were killed. They found the wreckage, but the mystery remains: Why did this happen? A U.S. National Transportation Safety Board reported that the crash was caused by a distraught pilot. The Egyptian Civil Aviation Authority disagreed and claimed that the crash was due to mechanical error.- Photo: Metaweb (FB) / CC-BYIn 2009, an Air France Flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. 228 passengers and crew were all killed. For five days, the world waited for the mystery to unravel. Eventually, the search-and-rescue team found the wreckage. It took another three years for a report to reveal the cause of the accident: ice had caused the autopilot to disengage. To this day, 74 bodies still remain unaccounted for.
- Photo: Metaweb (FB)In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103, flying from Europe to North America, was blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland. 243 passengers, 16 crew members, and 11 people on the ground were killed by the damage. The question of who planted the bomb remained for many years. Eventually a Libyan intelligence operative was convicted of the crime. Though in March 2014, a former Iranian intelligence officer claims that the bombing was actually ordered by Iran in retaliation for a U.S. strike on an Iranian passenger flight.
- Photo: Neil R / Flickr230 people were killed in 1996, when TWA Flight 800 crashed just outside of JFK. A report four years later suggested that the accident was probably caused by an explosion of flammable air vapors in the fuel tank ignited by a short circuit. Several witnesses allege that they saw the plane get hit by a missile.
- Photo: Wikimedia Commons / Public DomainIn 1944, famous bandleader Glenn Miller's plane was last seen crossing the English Channel. It disappeared into the fog two minutes after taking off. This was the height of World War II, so some allege the plane was mistakenly bombed by the British Air Force. Others allege that it was a coverup for Miller's actual death in a French bordello.
Flight 19
Photo: Metaweb (FB) / Public domainIn 1945, five planes left from a naval base in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. 14 airmen disappeared. The military alleges that all of these planes became disoriented and crashed into the ocean after running out of fuel. Other people suggest that they were swept up into the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle. The planes have never been recovered.- Photo: user uploaded imageIn 1947, an English plane disappeared in South America. The British South American Airways Star Dust had left Buenos Aires heading over the Andes to Santiago. The plane never arrived, but along the way the crew delivered a cryptic morse code message: "STENDEC." Some allege that this was the work of UFOs, though experts suggest that the plane probably just crashed into the snowcapped mountains.
The Star Tiger
Photo: user uploaded imageThe British South American Airways operated Star Tiger went missing somewhere between the Azores and Bermuda in 1948. The final communication from the flight asked Bermuda air control to send a signal. After delivering that information, the Bermudans did not hear back from the plane. The Star Tiger disappeared into the belly of the Bermuda Triangle.Flight 191 Enigma
Photo: Metaweb (FB) / Public domainIn the aviation community there is a flight route decked in mystery. Several planes on several different airlines have crashed, all with the flight number 191. In 1979, American Airlines Flight 191 went down between Chicago and Los Angeles. In 1985, Delta Air Lines Flight 191 crashed at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. In 2006, Comair Flight 5191 crashed in Lexington, Kentucky. In 2012, passengers aboard Jet Blue Flight 191 avoided disaster by subduing the captain who was having a panic attack.Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571
Photo: user uploaded imageUruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashed into the snow-capped Andes mountains. It's unclear why the flight went down. What's most fascinating about this case is that nearly twenty people survived. Not only did they make it out of the wreckage, but they continued to live for an additional 72 days stranded on the mountain. The only major source of nutrients was the bodies of those who didn't make it.US Army Air Corps B-24D
Photo: Gord McKenna / FlickrIn 1943, a U.S. military plane downed over Romania. The flight was on a World War II mission to destroy the oilfields in Ploiești, Romania. The plane hit some targets, but it was shot down by a Romanian IAR 80. In a mysterious turn of events, the plane crashed into a women's prison.- Photo: Metaweb (FB) / Public domainAmerican businessman and adventurer Steve Fossett held several world-records for circumnavigating the globe in a fixed-wing plane and a hot air balloon. In his final adventure, he flew a single-engine Bellanca Super Decathlon airplane around the Sierra Nevada mountains. His plane went down, and search-and-rescue teams took weeks but eventually found the plane. Fossett's body was not in it however. Several months later, human bones were found in the Yosemite mountains. It's alleged that he was eaten by something.
