2014 in aviation

[SS-18 ICBM]

First, the Malaysia Airlines incidents and now these.

TransAsia Airways Flight 222

It was supposed to be a routine 35-minute journey, but flight GE222 ended tragically - taking away 48 lives suddenly.

At the scene of the crash in Magong city in north-west Taiwan, the plane could be seen split up into pieces - the cockpit jutted up against the wall of one residence, the propeller and one of the wings near another house, and the tail at the end of the narrow lane where the aircraft crashed to earth.

Mangled beyond recognition, the parts were carefully lifted onto a flatbed truck on Thursday to be taken away for analysis.

So devastating was the crash that it also destroyed some of the homes in this normally quiet neighbourhood in the Penghu archipelago.

The TransAsia Airways plane had aborted its initial landing and then lost contact with the control tower before crashing.

It took off from southern Taiwan's Kaohsiung city after a typhoon had passed through Taiwan and the authorities thought it was safe to resume flights. But they may have miscalculated.

Local residents say there was still heavy rain, as well as thunder and lightening in Penghu at the time.

Air Algérie Flight 5017

An Air Algérie jetliner with 118 people on board lost contact with ground controllers on Thursday and likely crashed in northern Mali, the airline and French officials said, marking the latest in a string of airline incidents around the world that have mobilized aviation regulators and safety officials.

For the second time in a week, executives and air-safety regulators struggled to ascertain what happened. The jetliner, a Boeing Co. MD-83, took off from Burkina Faso en route to the Algerian capital, Algiers. If a crash is confirmed, authorities would then also have to grapple with the daunting task of retrieving wreckage and human remains from a desolate and tense conflict zone.

The fate of Air Algérie Flight 5017—which lost contact at 1:55 a.m. local time, 50 minutes after departing from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso—reverberated far beyond the Sahara, from where it was last heard. Fifty-one passengers on board were French nationals, many of them due to catch connecting flights in Algiers to return home to France.

Matter of coincidences or is there something going with the aviation industry?

 

[Kozmos]

I suppose it could be companies are cutting corners or the airframes are getting old.

 

[Ajidica]

I was thinking the same thing earlier today.
Clearly a conspiracy by the train lobby.

In all seriousness, it probably is just random chance.
Before 2014, what was the last major airline disaster? I think it was the AirFrance plane that went down in the Atlantic but I'm not sure.

 

[fishjie]

Probably an outlier. Air travel is still statistically the safest form of travel when all is said and done.

Its either that, or believe that the malaysian plane shot down over ukraine was actually the ORIGINAL missing malaysian airlines flight, which was hidden away in a US naval base, only to be flown over ukraine with already decomposing chinese corpses, so it could be shot down so that the illuminati could start a war between russia and the rest of the world.

 

[gay_Aleks]

We already have a conspiracy theory thread. But bravo, that's seriously crazy. Except for one thing:
It was a secret lizard base in Madagascar and not an UN naval base.

But the two are so close, it's a mistake anyone could make.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I was thinking the same thing earlier today.
Clearly a conspiracy by the train lobby.

In all seriousness, it probably is just random chance.
Before 2014, what was the last major airline disaster? I think it was the AirFrance plane that went down in the Atlantic but I'm not sure.

San Francisco about a year ago, the Asiatic plane, is the last major airliner crash I think, but almost everyone survived that one. Middle sized planes killing all 50 or less on board have happened a few times in the past year.

I think the current situation is amplified by factors beyond the loss of life. I mean there probably has not been an air disaster that was anywhere near as likely to be etched in memory as the endless search for the first Malaysian Air loss, and of course 'shot down' is uniquely memorable as well.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

or the airframes are getting old.

I wonder if anyone's keeping statistics on that.

Its either that, or believe that the malaysian plane shot down over ukraine was actually the ORIGINAL missing malaysian airlines flight, which was hidden away in a US naval base, only to be flown over ukraine with already decomposing chinese corpses, so it could be shot down so that the illuminati could start a war between russia and the rest of the world.

That's the best thing I've read all day.

 

[Tee Kay]

I don't think there's ever been three airliners downed in a single week. It must just be a coincidence but damn it's bad for the aviation business.

 

[bhsup]

I don't think there's ever been three airliners downed in a single week. It must just be a coincidence but damn it's bad for the aviation business.

*wince* At least not accidentally...

 

[Timsup2nothin]

*wince* At least not accidentally...

Oh.


Yeah.


There is that.

 

[Kozmos]

I wonder if there is SAM shootdown insurance policy for planes.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Doubt so, considering that the Ukrainian rebels have already patented "shooting down a plane with a SAM installation", and are currently about to sue some guys in Mali.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

I thought USS Vincennes innovated that.

 

[gay_Aleks]

They're rebels,they don't care what some people over two seas and one ocean think about SAM.

Besides, the patent is expired. Probably. Are 75 years enough?

 

[Cutlass]

There's a lot of noise and variability in air crashes. That's because there aren't a lot of air crashes, so a few losses make a big difference.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

There's a lot of noise and variability in air crashes. That's because there aren't a lot of air crashes, so a few losses make a big difference.

The long-term trend seems to be safer skies.

 

[Kozmos]

And don't forget every crash turns out to be an interesting episode for those disaster forensics on Discovery/NatGeo/Whatever channel.

 

[warpus]

There are so many flights going around the world in any single day.. stuff like this is bound to happen, statistically speaking, even though planes remain safer than cars and Florida.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

I don't think that comparison is fair for the cars.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Other than obviously 9/11, three passenger planes have gone down in a week before. What kind of criteria do you want for this? 50+ casualties? Well then this week doesn't meet that threshold because the Taiwan crash didn't kill over 50 (the last I read anyways) but there was other times in history where three planes with 50+ casualties went down in a single week. Most recently, it was 1997 when three planes went down from Dec 15-19th and death tolls from 70 to 104 from each. All three crashes together doesn't match the death toll from just MH17.

As for years 1977 was pretty bad with the two large passenger planes crashing into each other among other incidents. Generally as time goes on, fewer crashes but more deadly when they do happen as more planes carry more and more passengers at one time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...incidents_resulting_in_at_least_50_fatalities