A recent history of airliners and water-crashes

KUALA LUMPUR, March 13 — With tens of thousands of commercial flights globally every year, air crashes into waterways remain a rare occurrence, according US aviation authorities.

Though there are numerous reports of “ditching” by small planes, it is quite rare for commercial planes to deliberately land on water, the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said in a summary report on its website.

In aviation terminology, ditching refers to the forced landing of an aircraft that is not designed for that purpose — usually in an emergency.

Ditching of commercial flights is so rare that the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) does not require commercial pilots to be specifically trained to perform the act, though they are still required to be familiar with the procedures.

Figures on planecrashinfo.com — which tracks accidents involving civil and commercial aircraft globally — puts survivability of passengers and crew at 53 per cent in cases of ditching in controlled flight.

It is significantly higher than the survivability rate for plane crashes on land, which the website put at 24 per cent based on recorded incidents from the year 2000 onwards.

Below is a recent history of some notable “ditchings” based on reports from the US Aviation Safety Network, FAA, planecrashinfo.com, Time magazine and The Washington Post.

June 1, 2009 — Air France’s Airbus A330 flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris plunged into the Atlantic Ocean after disappearing without a trace with 216 passengers and 12 aircrew on board.

Wreckage was recovered five days later in the vast ocean indicating that the jumbo jet had crashed and damaged on impact killing all on board.

French investigators found that the cause of crash was an amalgamation of human and technical error, almost three years after the ditch when the plane’s black boxes were recovered from the depths of the ocean in May 2011.

June 30, 2009 — Yemenia flight 626 plunged into the Indian Ocean, killing all but one of the 153 passengers and crew on board.

The crash, which was attributed to the crew’s inappropriate flight control inputs leading to an aerodynamic stall of the Airbus 310 aircraft, happened some 14 kilometres north of the coastline of the Grande Comore island at around 1.50am local time.

The plane was flying from Paris to Moroni, Comoros, an island republic off the coast of Mozambique, and broke apart on impact.

The sole survivor, Bahia Bakari, 14, was ejected from the plane on impact, and held on to floating debris for over nine hours before her rescue. She suffered a fractured collar bone and bruises to her face, elbow and foot.

January 15, 2009 — US Airways flight 1549 was forced to ditch in the Hudson River off midtown Manhattan in New York, USA, after the plane struck a flock of geese and lost engine power in its initial ascent.

In the incident, the Charlotte, North Carolina-bound plane suffered from rapid loss of thrust from both engines. The crew determined that they would not be able to reliably reach any airfield, and elected to ditch the plane on the river.

All 155 occupants safely evacuated the aircraft, which was largely intact after the water landing. The incident has since been dubbed as “The Miracle on the Hudson”, and described by the US National Transport Safety Board (NTSB) as “the most successful ditching in aviation history”.

January 3, 2004 — Egyptian Flash Airlines FSH604 bound for Paris after a stopover in Cairo plunged into the Red Sea shortly after taking off from resort city Sharm el-Sheikh, on the Sinai peninsula.

The 135 passengers and crew members on board the Boeing 737-300 jet did not survive the impact which was later attributed to “mechanical problems” by Egypt’s Civil Aviation Ministry. Investigations revealed no conclusive evidence was recovered to determine the real cause.

The crash became to be known as the deadliest in Egypt’s airline industry.

October 31, 1999 — Egypt Air’s Boeing 767-300ER ditched into the Atlantic Ocean about 60 miles south of Nantucket, Massachusetts killing the 217 on board the flight en route to Cairo from Los Angeles via New York City.

Conflicting reports on the incident was a source of controversy as the NTSB found that the deathly dive was “deliberately” caused by the pilots while the Egyptian authorities concluded that the crash was due to mechanical failure.

November 23, 1996 — Ethiopian Airlines flight 961 crashed into the Indian Ocean after it was hijacked and ran out of fuel.

The Boeing 767-200ER, which was en route to Nairobi from Addis Ababa, was hijacked by three Ethiopians seeking asylum in Australia. The plane plunged into the Indian Ocean near Grande Comore in the Comoros Islands, killing 125 of the passengers and crew on board.

The hijackers were also killed. The incident was considered the deadliest hijacking involving a single aircraft, until the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack that brought down the World Trade Centre in New York, USA.

July 17, 1996 — Trans World Airlines (TWA) Flight 800 exploded and plunged into the Atlantic Ocean killing all 230 people on board.

The plane travelling from New York to Rome crashed 12 minutes after take-off from John F. Kennedy International Airport and was considered the third deadliest aviation accident to occur in US.

Investigation by the NTSB concluded plane went up in flames following an explosion in the fuel tank, most likely caused by a short-circuit.

Conspiracy is abound, however, that the jumbo jet was shot down by a missile from a US military aircraft and that the government covered it up.

January 1, 1978 — Air India’s Flight 855 crashed into the Arabian Sea off the coast of Bandra barely two minutes after take-off from the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport when the pilot made a right turn upon crossing the Bombay coastline.

The Boeing 747-237B proudly named “Emperor Ashoka” briefly returned to a normal flight position but soon began rolling to the left, and never regained level flight.

An investigation into the crash that took the lives of all 213 people on board revealed that the crash was a result of “irrational control inputs by the captain” that prevented the crew from regaining control of the plane.

May 2, 1970 — Dutch airline ALM flight 980 was forced to ditch in the Caribbean Sea after several unsuccessful attempts to land at the Princess Juliana International Airport in St Maarten, Netherlands Antilles.

The plane, flying out of the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, had circled the runway of the airport several times but the pilot had failed to get into properly set up the plane for landing in each landing attempt.

The plane ended up crashing 48 kilometres off nearby St Croix, killing 23 of the 63 passengers and crew on board.

October 16, 1956 — Pan Am flight 6 was forced to ditch in the Pacific Ocean, after two of its four engines failed en route to Philadeplhia from Honolulu.

The engine failure happened in the pre-dawn hours, but the pilot, having already communicated the situation with the Coast Guard, decided to keep the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser afloat until it was fully daylight to maximise rescue efforts.

The pilot managed to land the plane without any casualties.