By Callum Wilsie
When you think “plane crash,” the average person imagines the disaster at the World Trade Center. But what about the lesser known aerial disasters, which occur not because of terrorism, but plane or pilot error? Here are five of the biggest plane crashes to occur in the history of aviation, and how they happened.
- The Potomac Disaster — Air Florida Flight 90
The Potomac Disaster occurred on January 13, 1982, in Washington, DC, when a large passenger aircraft containing 74 passengers and 5 crew members failed to use proper deicing techniques in a severe winter storm.
As the plane—a Boeing 737—prepared for takeoff, the captain and first officer noticed there was an abundance of snow built up on the wings. The captain of this plane—Larry M. Wheaton—decided to attempt to deice the wings by following behind a larger plane which was releasing exhaust. This was deeply against airline policy for a reason, but he did it anyway. He believed that the exhaust would melt the snow off of his plane’s wings, but instead, it just created water. This water then froze as ice on key parts of the plane’s wing.
This would normally not be the end of the world– planes are equipped with an anti-ice function, which is basic procedure to turn on during snowy weather. Unfortunately, both the pilot and the first officer were used to balmy Florida weather. Therefore, on instinct, when going through the standard instrument checklist before takeoff they left the anti-ice function off.
This would set them up for disaster. When it was finally time for takeoff, they could barely get the plane off the ground. The large Boeing 737 struggled through the air. There was no chance of gaining altitude. It reached only 352 feet high (it would have needed 33,000 feet for cruising altitude) before it quickly began losing altitude again. The pilots desperately attempted to get the plane back up, but it was too late. The plane crashed down 352 feet into the Potomac River. 74 people, including both pilots, died. There were only 5 survivors.
- The Air Morgue — Helios Airways Flight 522
Helios Airways Flight 522 was scheduled to take off from Larnaca, Cyprus, stopover in Athens, Greece, and then continue on to Prague. Unfortunately, the plane would never even make it to Athens, instead creating one of the most chilling crash stories in aircraft history.
To understand this story, you have to understand what a pressurization system does. Planes fly miles high in the air, where the air is much thinner. Therefore, they require a system to pressurize the inside, so that the air in the plane is kept breathable. This system, in a Boeing 737, is controlled by a dial.
On August 14, 2005, a ground engineer was inspecting the inside of a Boeing 737 before takeoff. The ground engineer turned the pressurization dial to “manual,” in order to test the plane’s pressurization. Everything looked good, and so he gave the pilots the okay for takeoff. Unfortunately, he forgot to turn the dial back to “automatic”–the setting required to pressurize the plane correctly.
The pilots should have realized this during the pre-flight checks, but they didn’t. Despite going down multiple checklists, the captain and first officer both failed to notice the wrong setting.
Takeoff went totally fine, but as the plane climbed past 10,000 feet, an alarm blared. This was the cabin altitude warning, telling the pilots there was something wrong with cabin pressurization. Unfortunately, the warning sound for the cabin altitude was the same as the sound as the alarm that goes off when a plane isn’t ready to take off. Since they were in the air, and had already taken off, the pilots assumed it was a bug and ignored it.
As the plane climbed higher, hypoxia, the brain’s extreme state of confusion when deprived of oxygen, started to set in for the pilots. Back at the airport, the ground engineer who had previously checked the plane attempted to radio in and ask the captain if the dial for the cabin pressurization system was set to “automatic.” The captain ignored his radios, focusing on an entirely different problem due to hypoxia. Neither pilot ever even put on their oxygen masks.
After this point, all contact with Flight 522 was lost. Both pilots and all passengers passed out from lack of oxygen and were slowly dying. The plane, now on autopilot, continued to fly for hours as everyone on the plane passed away from lack of oxygen.
Finally, the last passenger left conscious; flight attendant Andreas Prodromou, slowly made his way to the cockpit. Prodromou had minimal flight training, and decided to attempt to control the aircraft.
Unfortunately, as soon as he reached the cockpit, the left engine died and the plane rapidly descended. Prodromou was successful at leading the plane away from crashing into a town, but nonetheless, at 12:03 pm, Helios Airways Flight 522 crashed into empty hills on the outside of Athens. There were 122 people on board. All remaining occupants who hadn’t already died of oxygen deprivation died instantly. This crash caused a much larger focus on airline safety in Europe.
- Tenerife Airport Disaster — PanAm Flight 1736/KLM Flight 4805
While most plane crashes occur in the air, the Tenerife Airport Disaster is the only one on this list which occurred on the ground.
On March 27, 1977, PanAm Flight 1736 was flying to the Canary Islands.
KLM Flight 4805 was also flying to the Canary Islands.
At the same time, a terrorist group was carrying out their plan to plant bombs at the Canary Island airport. This caused a panic, and authorities closed the Canary Island airport, instructing all planes to change course to different locations.
Both flights were instructed to land on the next island over; the Tenerife airport.
The KLM plane and PanAm planes landed, and sat on the taxiway waiting for further instructions. The KLM plane decided to fuel up extra for the flight back to the Canary Islands.
Finally, it was time for the planes to leave. The PanAm plane began taxiing down the runway first.
The KLM pilots powered up their plane, preparing to take off. They hadn’t been given orders to take off, yet–they were supposed to wait for the PanAm plane. The Captain radioed in that he was “ready for takeoff,” and the air traffic control said “standby for takeoff.” The PanAm captain interrupted, and said “No! We are still taxiing down the runway.”
For whatever reason, the KLM plane continued to taxi down the runway, and readied for takeoff.
At this point, the two planes were heading straight for one another. The visibility was so low that they couldn’t see that until it was too late.
Seeing the lights of the PanAm plane, the KLM pilot desperately tried to get his plane in the air. Unfortunately, the KLM pilot had fuelled up his plane extra, meaning it would have taken his plane much longer to get in the air. The nose pitched up, but the tail of his plane dragged along the runway.
Meanwhile, the crew of the PanAm plane saw the KLM plane and panicked. The captain applied full throttle, pushing the plane to the left in an attempt to dodge the oncoming tragedy.
However, the planes were too late, and the underside of KLM Flight 4805 smashed into the side of PanAm Flight 1736. There were, in both planes combined, 644 people. 583 of them died. There were only 61 survivors. This was the deadliest aviation accident in history. As a result of this crash, takeoff clearance must be read back and repeated, and cockpit procedures were changed to be more strenuous.
- Western Airlines Flight 2605
Western Airlines Flight 2605 was a regularly scheduled flight from Los Angeles to Mexico City, Mexico. The plane was running perfectly for the whole flight. Then, it came time to land.
At the Mexico City airport, Runway Left was closed for maintenance. The plane was expected to land on Runway Right.
However, Runway Left was equipped with an ILS–Instrument Landing System–while Runway Right was not. An ILS provides data to a plane to aid its landing in difficult weather. Since the weather was so terrible, this made an ILS extremely important.
So, the plane was instructed by air traffic control to follow the ILS to Runway Left and then reorient the plane to Runway Right.
As Runway Left approached, however, the visibility was almost non-existent. This meant the pilots could hardly see where they were going. On top of that, the air traffic controllers were not using phrasing that American pilots would recognize. Had the air traffic controllers been clearer about the plane’s need for a sidestep maneuver, what followed may have been preventable.
As the plane touched down to land on Runway Left, the pilots suddenly realized their fate. The runway was covered in debris and trucks, and clearly closed for construction.
The crew immediately attempted to get the plane airborne. The plane began to climb up, but in the process collided with a dump truck, killing the truck’s driver and badly damaging the right gear of the plane. As the damaged plane continued to attempt to climb, it began to violently roll to the right. The first officer screamed at the captain, “GET IT UP!”
While the captain grappled with the plane, it struck an aircraft repair hangar, and then finally collided with a service building. The aircraft fell apart and burst into flames. There were 89 occupants on board–76 passengers and 13 crew. There were only 17 survivors. Due to this incident, safety recommendations were published regarding sidestep approaches to runways.
- Alaskan Airlines Flight 261
On January 31, 2000, a standard Alaskan Airlines flight from Mexico was headed for the Seattle-Tacoma national airport. This flight seemed normal, but budget cuts by Alaskan Airlines doomed it from the start.
The plane took off and climbed to its cruising altitude like normal. However, once it reached 35,000 feet, the pilots discovered that the horizontal stabilizer–the mechanism on the tail end of the plane that controls the pitch of the plane–was jammed. The pilots had to continuously pull back forcefully on the yoke of the plane to keep it from going into a dive. This was clearly not going to be sustainable for the four hours the plane would have to be in flight, and so the captain contacted air traffic control to discuss an emergency landing in LA’s airport.
Air traffic control attempted to convince the pilots to continue flying, but the captain could tell this would be a horrible decision, and he chose to land in LA. It was still extremely hard to control the aircraft, and both pilots still had to continuously pull back on the yoke. So, the pilots decided to attempt to fix the problem. After many tries, the pilots successfully un-jammed the yoke, but this caused a much worse situation. Rather than just coming free and working correctly, the horizontal stabilizer separated. The plane went into a complete nosedive as the pilots desperately tried to gain control.
Because the plane wanted the nose to pitch down so far, the captain had a last-ditch idea. When the plane started banking to the left, instead of trying to recover it, the captain flipped the plane entirely over. The large passenger aircraft was now flying upside down over the Pacific Ocean. The two pilots were shaken by how quickly everything had happened, as they now attempted to turn the plane back right side up. Unfortunately, the plane had lost too much altitude already. The plane smashed upside down into the Pacific off the coast of Southern California. There were 88 people on board–5 crew members, and 83 passengers. There were no survivors. Heavy recommendations were published after this accident, mostly regarding plane maintenance and pilot training in the case of a flight-control system malfunction.
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