Crash Victims Info

What was the last major civil airline crash and how much safer has the industry become?

also how dangerous is it for a plane to take off in or land in a thunder storm? i took off from madrid yesterday sunday and on the drive to the airport the skies over spain were dark and full of lighting. The take off in a smallish airbus easyJet was a little bumpy with sideways movement and a lot of creaking from the back of the plane. I was almost in cold sweats but looking around everyone else was happy as larry, perhaps its because i've seen too many of the those aircrash documentaries. Anyway the pilot later said that we flew on the edge of the weather system.

Public Comments

1. airplanes are safe, do not worry! any USA aircraft has to pass 8 mechanics test.. there will be no errors! so fly safe
2. The last major one was in Brazil and about 200 people died. Well, you did ask!
3. I think the last big one was last month in Brazil. A320 Airbus. Being state of the art computer controlled flight guidence systems I wouldn't say that it made the aircraft any safer. Majority of crashes are caused by either bad weather or aircrew error
4. The last major crash was that A320 that ran off the runway on landing in Brazil. (most likely pilot error which is a contributing factor in over 80% of crashes) Air travel is very safe these days. You are more likely to have a crash driving your car to the airport than in an aircraft. There is always an element of risk involved when flying in bad weather so it is up to the Captain to decide what weather is acceptable and what weather will not be acceptable to land in. Before any flight the captain carefully studies the take off & landing procedures which have limitations when operating in thunderstorms or bad weather.
5. I quote the site I give hereunder: Accidents are extremely rare, with the probability of a passenger being killed on a single flight at approximately eight million-to-one. If a passenger boarded a flight at random, once a day, everyday, it would be approximately 22,000 years before he or she would be killed. unquote. from the second site quote: 578 victims 27 March 1977; KLM 747-200 and Pan Am 747-100; Tenerife, Canary Islands: unquote I travel a lot. I feel that privatisation has affected safety, as is shown by the bad performances of many smaller private airlines in third world countries, e.g. Indonesia. Taking of in a thunderstorm: that willd depend on the meteo, the control tower, the type of airplane, the safety devices involved, the economic pressure on the captain and the ability of the captain. have a nice day edit: by unquote I mean: end of the quote. I quoted from one of the sites mentioned in the sources section. I have flown a lot. I have never been in a situation were people got really nervous or anxious due to weather conditions. Most airplanes nowadays have good equipment and are informed about weather conditions. It is easy for them to avoid bad weather. I do not think it is unsafe to take off or land in a thunderstorm. If the weather conditions are very bad I expect the people who decide, to know their job.
6. No recommendations have come from the Brazilian crash yet. I think what you really are asking is do we actually DO anything when we find out why an airliner crashes. Yes, we do. The most recent example which comes to mind is the tail that snapped off the Airbus climbing out of New York. Pilots are familiar with having a "maneuvering speed" in which it is relatively safe to fly into turbulence and/or apply full control deflection. The problem is that this is based on the wing stalling before we overload the airplane - it only applies to pitch and not to rudder application. So, an update came out to our Airplane Flight Manual that stated that rapid and full deflection of the rudder at ANY speed could cause structural failure. Other examples are that we are not allowed to fly in severe icing with the autopilot engaged. This is due to the American Eagle ATR crash in Indiana, in which the autopilot masked the unusual control inputs that were required to keep the wings level. If a human pilot were flying he would have known something was wrong. (As a side note the only time we fly in severe icing is when we blunder into it and we fly out of it as quickly as we can - didin't want to give the impression that we just loiter around while the airplane is turning into an ice cube). Another example is the Delta L1011 crash in Dallas while flying an approach in the vicinity of a thunderstorm and windshear. This crash has caused a lot of focus on windshear and it is not incorporated in our training (not in the detail I would like but at least it's something). The answer to your last question is that it is VERY dangerous to take off or land in thunderstorms. I don't do it. We're trained to give them a wide berth. Like the speed limit, however, some pilots do, others don't.
7. as Blue ranger said the last airplane crash was in Brazil. however airplane flying is the safest way to travel. its safe for airplanes to takeoff in bad weather unless there's lighting. it may be a little bumpy....
8. It is the safest form of transportation. You have a higher chance getting into an accident while driving to the super market, than flying in an airliner. Also, because there aren't that many airplanes.
9. You know that drive to the airport you were talking about in Madrid? That was the most dangerous part of your trip.
10. 200 dead in a crash in Brazil last month, most likely due to pilot error exacerbated by awful weather conditions. You've more chance of hitting the jackpot 2 weeks running in the National Lottery than you have of being even seriously injured in a plane crash.