Sabotage

The first proven case of sabotage in the history of commercial aviation occurred in Indiana on 10 October 1933. The United Airlines Boeing 247-D was destroyed en route to Chicago when an explosive device consisting of nitro-glycerine and a timing device detonated in the cargo hold. All 10 aboard were killed.

The fatalities of a 23 June 1985 Air India flight over the Atlantic Ocean were far more appalling. A terrorist working at Vancouver airport in Canada checked baggage with bombs onto two Air India flights. One bag destined for Tokyo exploded at the airport, killing two baggage handlers, but the other exploded on flight 182 110 miles west of Ireland, killing all 329 aboard the Boeing 747.

Perhaps the most famous (bar 9/11) terrorist attack on an airplane was the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. A Pan Am Boeing 747 disappeared from radar on a flight from Heathrow to New York on 21 December. The detonation of an explosive device planted by terrorists in the cargo area caused the airplane to break up. Two main sections of the wreckage fell on the town of Lockerbie killing 11 on the ground. All 259 aboard the plane were also killed, including musician Paul Jeffreys.

Airlines and the apartheid state

The Helderberg disaster is probably South Africa’s most famous plane crash, and is surrounded by conspiracy theories relating to the South African government’s weapons programme and rumours of sabotage. The SAA flight, which took off from Chiang Kai Shek International Airport on a flight to Johannesburg via Mauritius on 28 November 1987, experienced a catastrophic fire and crashed into the ocean. Rumours that the commercial flight was carrying explosive weapons and that the conversation recorded between the pilot and the control tower was tampered with have never fully left the realm of speculation, although the families of the deceased have pushed for a fresh investigation.

Bizarre disasters

No account of the bizarre would be complete without at least a passing mention of the Bermuda Triangle. A British South American Airways plane disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean just off Bermuda on a flight to Kingston on 17 January 1949. The weather was good and the plane, which was called Star Ariel, didn’t send out any distress messages. The wreckage was never found and the cause of the accident remains undetermined. All 20 aboard were presumed dead.

The next ‘bizarre’ disaster seems quirky, but is actually a rather common cause of airplane accidents. A 4 October 1960 Eastern Airlines flight over Boston struck a flock of starlings a few seconds after becoming airborne. The birds were sucked into the engines causing engine one to shut down and engines two and four to experience a momentary but substantial loss of power. This caused the airplane to spin and fall almost vertically into the water. Of the 72 on board, only 10 survived.

In Peru, on 2 October 1996, an Aeroperu plane crashed into the ocean 28 minutes after taking off as a result of some adhesive tape. During routine maintenance and cleaning adhesive tape had been placed over the static ports. However, the tape was not removed as it should have been prior to flight, causing a malfunction of the airspeed indicators and altimeters. The crew, flying over the ocean at night was unable to determine the altitude and airspeed and crashed into the sea. The 70 aboard the flight were killed and a maintenance worker was charged with negligent homicide and spent two years in jail.

Another airplane disaster which resulted in jail time was the 27 July 2002 crash of a fighter jet in Lviv, Ukraine, during an air show. The pilots disregarded their flight plan and performed untried and dangerous tricks. The plane crashed into a crowd of spectators killing 85. The pilots, who had parachuted out of the plane before the crash, were each given 14 years in jail.

Odds are 52.6 million to one

And now that you are too terrified to ever set foot on a plane remember that the odds that you’ll be killed in an car are (for a single trip) seven times greater than the odds that you’ll be killed in an airplane - 52.6 million to one - and that even on one of the worst airliners in the world your chances of being killed on a single flight are one in 543 000. So you’ll probably be okay.