A Catalogue of Disaster
This is a list of some of the plane accidents since 1977 in which over 100 people have died. 1977 was the year of the world’s worst aviation accident in Tenerife when 583 people lost their lives.
Not included is the 1992 El Al Boeing 747 cargo plane which crashed into an apartment block shortly after takeoff from Schiphol Airport, because the official death toll was 43, mostly on the ground. The apartments housed many illegal immigrants and while initial Dutch government estimates put the number of dead at over 200 this could not be confirmed.
And of course, the world’s worst aviation disaster was not an accident. On September 11th, 2001, over 3,000 people lost their lives when airliners were hijacked and crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
2006 Gol Flight 1907, a Boeing 737, collided in mid air with an Embraer Legacy 600 over the Brazilian rainforest. 155 dead.
2005 Helios Airways Flight 522, a Boeing 737, crashed into a mountain north of Marathon, Greece. 121 dead.
2001 American Airlines Flight 587, an Airbus A300, crashed in Queens, New York, when its tailfin snapped off after takeoff. 256 dead.
2001 SAS Flight 686, an MD87, crashed into a Cessna during takeoff in Milan. 118 dead.
2000 Air France Flight 4590, a Concorde, crashed in Gonesse after a fuel tank caught fire. 113 dead.
1998 Swissair Flight 111, a McDonnell Douglas MD11, crashed off Nova Scotia because of a fire on board. 229 dead.
1996 Vnukovo Airlines Flight 2801, a Tupolev Tu154, crashed into a mountain in Spitsbergen, an island between Norway and the North Pole. 141 dead.
1996 Valujet Airlines Flight 592, a McDonnell Douglas DC9, crashed in the Everglades near Miami after a fire in the hold. 110 dead.
1994 USAir Flight 427, a Boeing 737, crashed on landing in Pittsburgh due to a problem with a rudder. 133 dead.
1989 United Airlines Flight 232, a McDonnell Douglas DC10, crash landed after a system failure over Iowa. 111 dead.
1989 Independent Air Flight 1851, a Boeing 707, struck the Pico Alto mountain during its approach to Santa Maria in the Azores. 144 dead.
1987 Northwest Airlines Flight 255, an MD82, crashed on takeoff from Detroit after a pilot error. 154 dead.
1987 LOT Polish Airlines Flight 5055, an Ilyushin 1162M, crashed near Warsaw after suffering engine failure during the landing. 183 dead.
1985 Arrow Air Flight 1285, a DC8, crashed after takeoff in Gander, Canada. 256 dead.
1979 American Airlines Flight 191, a DC10, crashed taking off from O’Hare Airport, Chicago. 273 dead.
1978 Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 182, a Boeing 727, collided with a Cessna over San Diego. 144 dead.
1977 TAP Portugal Flight 425, a Boeing 727, burst into flames after over-running the runway at Madeira. 131 dead.
1977 KLM Flight 4805 collided with taxiing PanAm Flight 1736, both Boeing 747s, at Tenerife. 583 dead.
A similar list was published in The Telegraph print edition shortly after the Madrid air crash in 2008.
