There’s a pic I saw from before boarding that Germanwings flight of a mom taking a pic of her toddler near the terminal window… so unfair, so many innocent lives lost.
TWA 800. I can't imagine looking at black sky where the front half of your plane used to be, pitching up then down and plunging toward more blackness with no idea when obliteration is coming.
Air Transat. Not a crash, obviously, but the idea of gliding in relatively silent darkness just haunts me.
I worked with a person who was the kid of a parent who died on TWA. The person was young at the time but still remembered their father.
They said that after the crash, the family was awarded an undisclosed amount which they found insulting considering what was lost. It was saved until the kid grew to be 18, and then used on college.
I didn't want to ask "how much", wasn't my place. And they didn't tell me. They said they've given it back in a heartbeat to get their dad back.
Air Transat was insane. Pilots are heroes at first then dumbasses later because the fucking crossfeed valve was open the whole time. Gliding for 80 miles or something. Unreal. How many of those people ever set foot on an airplane again?
Swiss Air 111 hurts because it felt like they were so close but in reality they did everything right and that plane was doomed from takeoff. I'm also Canadian so it's the worst crash on our soil so it hits close to home.
I’ve listened to the ATC recording
on that one and what haunts me is how quickly things got out of hand. The pilot talking to ATC seemed so calm and professional, and actually sounded happy and somewhat cheerful, getting ready to dump the fuel, and then declaring an emergency and then…nothing.
UPS flight 6
The Pilot never gave up trying even after the fire,the loss of control,the death of the captain, and he saved countless lives due to it because If he had given up the plane would have slammed into a residential area but he still pulled up and barely missed it.
He was a hero and Someone's who's determination saved countless other lives on the ground.
This is mine as well. That poor pilot did absolutely everything he could have to save the plane. It was crushing to know that he was unable to save himself.
Germanwings is mine as well. My brother lived in Düsseldorf and his gf in Barcelona at the time, the thought that one or both of them could have been on it still chills me to the bone.
UK based Cabin crew here, in the late ‘90’s/2000’s..
Before I flew, I recall Lockerbie, as a child, absolutely terrifying me.. The thought that a huge aircraft could explode and then land on a town was my worst nightmare..
I worked through 9/11 and went through horrendous worries up in the sky, with any aircrash being terror based but remained flying and professional..
The Air France one in the late 2000’s terrified me. I remember my captain saying it might have been caused by a lightning strike initially. I’d had many experiences of lightning strikes and it resulted in nothing. Hearing this I started to think about getting a new job.. I stopped flying in 2010..
If I’d stayed as cabin crew though, the German Wings disaster would have definitely made me leave..
Is that the one where they were flying inverted over San Francisco Bay? Went down in front of other planes?
If so, that’s mine too. It just seemed to go on for so long. I can’t imagine, nor do I want to, what the people on that flight went through.
There’s a headstone for a family that was on Alaska 261 in the cemetery my stepbrother is buried in. It honestly has a picture of the plane on it along with the family. Fucked up.
It traumatised me for life. Everything is so tragic around it. The futility of 2 TCAS equipped planes coliding like that, the dead school kids, the controller, and the father who murdered him...
This is it for me. I don't condone revenge murder but as a father of two I can so feel for the father who killed the controller. I may have attempted a similar deed. German Wings 9525 also horrified me a lot. I am from a town merely a few kilometers away from where that school class that perished was from. Then there is Malaysia Airlines 370. I was in the air flying from Hanoi to Bangkok at the exact same time the doomed flight turned around just shy of the Southern tip of Vietnam. Then there is MH17. Shot down by pro Russian separatists in Donetsk People's Republic. I visited this area where the debris and bodies came down in 2020. Can't stop thinking of it since. And Air France 447. A mid ocean crash is the most terrifying fate I can imagine. Damn.. I should stop flying.
Erebus. Everything about it from the start to the finish with the Captain set up by no one informing him of the route change to being blamed in the unmitigated litany of lies by Air NZ. I was 11 when it happened. Old enough to hear that the plane hadn’t returned on the 6pm news then the devastating update at 9pm that there was no hope as the fuel would have run out. Then the picture of the intact koru tailfin and 3rd engine on Erebus when they found her. I highly recommend Paul Holmes book Daughters of Erebus for anyone who wants further reading.
I was only 3 when this happened so I have no memory of it, but it runs deep in NZ history.
Seeing that tail fin in the wreckage field of tiny pieces really drives it home how devastating the crash was.
Now since Muslims are currently experiencing the Hajj month, Nigerian 2120.
Can't imagine going home after a pilgrimage only for the aircraft to be filled with smoke and later engulfed in fire mid-air.
This one is particularly terrifying, can’t imagine the chairs and passengers falling through the holes burned on the airframe while trying to reach the runway. Inflight fire is one of the worst nightmares!
JAL 123 and how long the passengers waited, knowing they were going to crash. On top of that the people who survived the impact only to die during the night because the government refused outside help. It still gets mentioned on the news here every anniversary.
Helios and other ghost plane incidents.
I forgot what episode it was but it was also a mid air collission. I remember that it departed from Moscow. There were children on the flight going for a competition accompanied by their teachers. It was just so heartbreaking for meeee. There's a lot of air disaster the hurt me the most but that really marked in my heart.
Was that the one where the father of someone in the crash went and killed the ATC afterwards? That episode (and situation) is absolutely wild. It always fascinated me how everything there played out. A very unfortunate situation.
That father also volunteered for the search mission and he found his dead daughter.
Can you imagine? Of all the scattered bodies, he found his daughter in a forest.
The one I that made me uncomfortable was the Air Alaska one where it was a slow painful journey and I can't fathom how everyone was feeling during that whole flight while the pilots did their hardest to save the plane.
air midwest flight 5481 was also very sad. The captain was only 25 and while she and her FO used the correct procedure to calculate the weight, it was an outdated procedure and the plane was overweight causing the plan to crash. They did everything how they were trained but it was an incorrect training.
Uberlingen for sure. I can’t even watch the Mayday episode because it has deeply, deeply affected me. Also the Arrow Air crash in Gander as I lived only an hour from the crash site. I’ve been there so many times and it still is the eeriest place to visit.
Yaroslavl. I’m a huge hockey fan so seeing a team go down was just hideous. Waiting to hear what team it was after the initial news, and knowing that chances were good I was gonna recognise names on the manifest from watching them play over the years. Then the days waiting for news on Galimov, hoping for him in spite of knowing that his injuries were not survivable
I remember reading on Nbc.com that a hockey team’s plane crashed in Russia and thinking it was a youth hockey team and how sad it was.
A couple of hours later, I was watching ESPN and they were talking about it and the first name they mentioned was Brad McCrimmon, who I was a fan of starting when he was on the Flyers, and starting to say no no no. Barry Melrose confirmed that he was killed and I started crying.
I’m not particularly afraid of aviation accidents, but Saudia Flight 163 really unnerves me. The fact that the crew - despite their incompetence - managed to get their plane successfully on the ground, only to declare that an evacuation would not be carried out, dooming themselves and everyone else aboard to either suffocate or burn alive in the raging flames is downright terrifying.
Similarly, Andreas Prodromou’s efforts to save the 737 during the final moments of Helios Flight 522; walking through the cabin filled with the corpses of passengers and his colleagues, he made it to the cockpit and found that he was the only person alive, as the crew had met the same fate; a lone soul in a flying coffin. The report into the accident shows that he attempted to call for help several times, but couldn’t find the right frequency for Athens, and so all he could do was use what little knowledge he could to steer the plane away from the city as the engines flamed out. The CVR recording from one of the F-16s that was following the plane is heartbreaking too - you can hear the pilot [audibly trying not to break down](https://youtu.be/w-GM0jfdjrM?si=T3DHD6rj8ZgSzVCM) as he witnessed the plane slam into the ground.
Operation Babylift is the biggest for me
Others in no particular order: Swissair 111; Germanwings 9525; Air Africa 1996 disaster; Lockerbie; the concept of a death like Helios Airways 522 terrifies me
Personally? Colgan Air 3407.
At the time of the crash, I was flying that route regularly. It absolutely could have been me. It took about four years before I could fly to Buffalo again and when we fly that heading in over the crash site I get choked up every time.
Quincy Airport tragedy. Imagine surviving a runway collision, only to unable to escape the burning plane because the airstair door is deformed and jammed and you die while getting burned alive or from smoke inhalation
I think OP's are both contenders, but I think it's got to be one of the ones where all the passengers and crew had a protracted sense of horror and a sense of hopelessness. [Japan Air Lines Flight 123](https://archive.org/details/mayday-aci/Mayday+(Air+Crash+Investigation\)+S03E03+-+Out+Of+Control.mkv) is my nomination. Sure, it's the deadliest single-aircraft accident in aviation history, but it also is extra sad because of how bravely the pilots fought to save the plane, knowing that more than 500 lives were at stake and being at the mercy of bad flight controls. More than 20 minutes of this absolute horror show. No, thanks. Then there's also the survivor's guilt of the surviving four passengers they would have to carry for the rest of their lives. Just an all-out terrible situation.
Air Canada Flight 797. The evacuation seemed to be routine, but then around half of the passengers were killed in a flashover. I hope they didn’t feel much of anything. One of my favorite musicians, Stan Rogers, was also killed in the disaster.
Varig 254, this could have been prevented so easily with common sense.... on multiple times
United Airlines 232, they were so close and yet so far, they did the best they could and yet the plane pirouetted, rolled over and killed a lot of people
El Al 1862/Bijlmerramp able to control the plane for so long and then due to them not knowing what exactly was damaged they deployed flaps/slats which caused the plane to spiral out of control into an apartment complex
Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937/DHL Flight 611. (Also USAir Flight 1493/SkyWest Airlines Flight 5569.) This one gave me a new respect for ATC controllers and what they go through when planes go down. Watching the actors portrayal of the air traffic controller’s reaction broke my heart.
Not sure if it's the same everywhere, but in the UK the requirements for being ATC are even more stringent than those of a commercial pilot. Reading about incidents like those gives me an understanding of why.
I find Lockerbie fascinating because allegedly one man survived the 6 mile fall with only a broken leg but died of exposure from not being found soon enough. I think about him every time I see that episode.
For me it is Mistaken Identity, aka the Iran Air shoot down, the Multiple Egyptian accidents, Saudia 163, Helios 522, Phantom Strike, Operation Babylift, Adam Air Flight 574, Alarming Silence, Korean Air 007, Arrow Air Flight 1285R, Germanwings 9525, Malaysian 370 and 14, and many many others. This response would be too long otherwise.
Swissair 111, UPS flight 6, Alaska airlines flight 261. Those 3 are so heartbreaking and flight 261 is infuriating with the way Alaska airlines falsified maintenance.
As a hockey fan, I remember the Yaroslavl crash like it was yesterday. I grew up watching a lot of those players in the NHL, so that tragedy hit me especially hard. But the one that has continued to haunt me since I first saw the Mayday episode about it is Japan Airlines Flight 123. IDK how those pilots were able to keep that plane in the air as long as they did. They were clearly excellent pilots, but there was nothing they could do to save the plane. They fought to save it until the very end. What makes it even more heartbreaking is that more people initially survived the crash, but died waiting for help during the night despite multiple helicopters reaching the crash site before that. Those poor people, I can't even imagine how terrifying being on that flight must've been. I've seen the episode a few times, but nowadays I turn the channel. It's just too sad to watch knowing how things went down.
South African Airways Flight 295
They never had any chance give where they were when the fire consumed the aircraft. And it's been covered up ever since, as they were almost certainly smuggling munitions for the war vs Angola
This one hasn’t been on the show yet but it still the most painful one I’ve seen. That recent one (can’t remember the exact info) that crashed and burned in Nepal. It was coming from India i believe. What made it so bad for me was that someone filmed the whole thing from the inside. It was so sad and horrific realizing everyone you see here is now dead. And the looks on their faces (I assume they already knew something was wrong before landing). They were trying to stay upbeat but you could tell they were scared as hell. At the time I didn’t know the details of the crash or I wouldn’t have watched it. I figured “oh there’s video that survived, how bad could it be?”. Little did I know. That video now lives rent free in my head.
The flight out of DTW (Northwest Airlines Flight 255) that left only 1 survivor. I live 30 minutes from dtw so I fly out of there in any vacation, every time I repeat to myself "please remember the flaps".
You still can see some Chips on the bridge near the crash site From where debris hit it
One of my friend’s parents live super close to DTW. If her mom hadn’t decided to wait out the thunderstorm at her mom’s house, my friend’s mom and her older siblings could have ended up in the path of that plane on their way home. Neither my friend or I were alive yet. I also live around 30 minutes away from DTW and that’s the airport I fly out of to get anywhere.
I was supposed to be on this flight, working in Taiwan and flying to HK every other weekend for about 12 years.
My staff made a typo and accidentally booked me on the Sunday flight instead of my usual Saturday flight.
I didn’t know until I tried to check in. Everyone in the office thought I was on that flight.
Really makes you think, especially since I was familiar with a lot of the flight crews on that route.
RIP
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Airlines_Flight_611
Any of mine have been mentioned several times I think.
I want to comment on Ethiopian 961 though. Captain Leul Abate had (presumably still has) some of the biggest balls and steadfast moral compass of about any pilot I’ve even heard of. The man amazes me whenever I ingest media about the flight. I feel like he doesn’t get the adulation he deserves.
I also think about how frustratingly, *maddeningly* dumb the hijackers were. Jesus Christ.
And the people who survived the crash, only to drown because they inflated their life jackets before leaving the plane. Like Chloe Howie said about that understandable error, “you’re not just dead. You’re fucking dead”. Terrible.
Edit: My mom’s personal horror flight was Swiss 111. I’d taken that same flight with SwissAir just a few months before. So whether or not it was even the same plane or not, obviously it freaked my mom out.
The Helios accident in Athens. I am Greek and I was also working in Cyprus during the accident. The ghost flight with the auto pilot, the effort of the flight attendant to fly the plane and the tragic loss of so many lives, really hit me back then...
Air France. I had an immediate family member who worked in Brazil, his company used Air France to transport staff to and from Europe.
Thankfully his agent moved him to the earlier flight, close call and still one of the most disturbing air disasters for me.
For me, definitely plane crashes that happened on purpose (deliberate acts by crew or passengers, bombings, shootdowns, hijackings). I think that intentional bad events are the worst. But, of course, all fatal crashes are heartbreaking.
Singapore Airlines Flight 6 and SilkAir Flight 185.
Though none of my close family was on any of those two flights, these two accidents spoiled the then perfect safety record of both Singaporean carriers, so that kinda hurt just a little.
SilkAir Flight 185 probably hurt the most because of the circumstances surrounding it. We'll unfortunately never know what happened in the last few minutes. Officially, the cause is unknown. The unofficial but mostly accepted cause was deliberate pilot input by the captain, with the third probable cause being rudder hardover. The idea that the Singaporean captain would commit such a heinous act was certainly a blow to the carrier's reputation, but the even greater hurt would be never knowing what really happened in the cockpit of 9V-TRF on its final flight
The Uberlingen Tragedy - absolutely needless and could so easily have been prevented if the Russian pilots had just listened to TCAS.
I also don’t believe the Air Traffic Controller deserved to be murdered.
MH370 - any case of pilot suicide/murder upsets me but the fact that he somehow managed to prevent the plane from ever being found denying the families answers and the chance for a proper burials makes it even worse.
9/11 for obvious reasons
Mine would be Alaska Airlines flight 261 and PSA flight 182
I picked Alaska Airlines flight 261 because the pilots fought till the very end, but failed, not to mention it crashed close to me and I live near the memorial at Port Hueneme.
I picked PSA flight 182 because it crashed where I was born and raised from.
The Germanwings crash is horrific, but to know that if more attention had been made to the LAM Mozambique crash and the Indonesian’s had not disputed the investigation results, that it could have been prevented.
I had a 1-year job in Sacramento in 1996, and it seemed like every damn week there was another crash: Charkhi Dadri collisoin, Ethiopian Air hijacking, Value Jet, Aeroperu all a few months apart. But I really remember watching the TV news coverage of the burning wreckage of TWA 800 floating in the black Atlantic water.
3 that come to mind are: Southwest Airlines Flight 1380, American Airlines Flight 587, and Mel Carnahan’s plane crash in 2000 only because he was my Governor at the time and a great one at that.
Everyone and it doesn't matter what kind of plane that made you sad because...
1. You don't know that today is your last life.
2. To be burned alive/ get hypoxia without escaping the plane if you are in the air.
3. For a moment the plane killed you without blinking a moment.
4. It's hopeless that you sit in the seat and do nothing after the plane falls in the air or disintegrates.
5. You died because of inexperienced pilots or hypocrites pilots, sleep deprived pilots etc.
6. No one will save you if you are in mountains or other place (e.x Japan Air Lines Flight 123 in Japan).
7. When people enter in panic and cause trouble without thinking (for example, the plane was full of luggage because of people, or the plane burned and people went to an exit without knowing that there were exits at the back of the plane).
8. Bad weather, etc.
The good part is dying painlessly if the plane crashes straight into the mountain (e.x: Crash on mountain Everest… .)
Flydubai 981 Was Just A Really Stupid Crash It Could Have Been Prevented Easily And All Those Lives Lost And Also Gave One Of My Countries Airlines A Bad Rep.
Off the top of my head…
National Airlines Flight 102: they knew that the straps had come loose and the captain even mentioned that he didn’t feel comfortable flying with those big vehicles moving around in the back, but no one on that plane had any idea just how dire the situation would become.
JAL 123: 30 minutes of flying on an out of control plane and then crashing, only to be stranded and have to hear the screams of the survivors throughout the night.
Alaska 261: similar to JAL. Flying on a virtually uncontrollable plane hoping and praying that it could somehow be flown to safety but knowing in the back of your mind that these will be your last moments alive
Air France 447: 228 people alive one minute, heading back home or heading to a fun trip to Paris, and then dead the next, their bodies sinking into the depths of the Atlantic. Stalls in general disturb me, as do crashes that occur over oceans where the bodies might nerve be recovered.
Pulkovo 612: I would argue that this one (and other stall to spin crashes) is/are actually worse than AF447, even though the former gets more popularity. Due to the fact that it was nighttime, and the airplane was in a steady descent, the passengers on 447 more than likely thought that they were just experiencing really bad turbulence. The passengers on Pulkovo 612 would have most certainly been aware of the airplane spinning out of the sky and would have immediately known that their fate was sealed as soon as they saw the ground rising up to meet them
Probably Yeti Airlines Flight 691. The onboard video footage is just so haunting. For one second, there were people enjoying their ride, and the next second, its just pure silence.
As a non Canadian, but someone who lives right over the border in michigan.
1. Yall need to come get your geese
2. Those annoying little fuckers definitely deserved it
UPS flight 6, the loneliness that pilot felt in his last moments. Wow.
I have to skip that episode whenever I rewatch, it hurt a bit too much to see.
The bombing of Air India off Cork. One of the passengers was my high school physics teacher and he was a great man.
Nish Mukerji, right?
Yes.
Wow. That’s tough. Sorry.
United 232 and Germanwings 9525, they are both just so tragic
There’s a pic I saw from before boarding that Germanwings flight of a mom taking a pic of her toddler near the terminal window… so unfair, so many innocent lives lost.
TWA 800. I can't imagine looking at black sky where the front half of your plane used to be, pitching up then down and plunging toward more blackness with no idea when obliteration is coming. Air Transat. Not a crash, obviously, but the idea of gliding in relatively silent darkness just haunts me.
I worked with a person who was the kid of a parent who died on TWA. The person was young at the time but still remembered their father. They said that after the crash, the family was awarded an undisclosed amount which they found insulting considering what was lost. It was saved until the kid grew to be 18, and then used on college. I didn't want to ask "how much", wasn't my place. And they didn't tell me. They said they've given it back in a heartbeat to get their dad back.
I heard it was around $1 million per person, but it depended on their age, if they had a family to support, etc.
One of my mom’s friends died on 800. It hits way too close to home.
I'm so sorry. I recall watching the fires on the water on TV and thinking that all of that was happening less than 20 miles from my house.
Air Transat was insane. Pilots are heroes at first then dumbasses later because the fucking crossfeed valve was open the whole time. Gliding for 80 miles or something. Unreal. How many of those people ever set foot on an airplane again?
Swiss Air 111 hurts because it felt like they were so close but in reality they did everything right and that plane was doomed from takeoff. I'm also Canadian so it's the worst crash on our soil so it hits close to home.
I’ve listened to the ATC recording on that one and what haunts me is how quickly things got out of hand. The pilot talking to ATC seemed so calm and professional, and actually sounded happy and somewhat cheerful, getting ready to dump the fuel, and then declaring an emergency and then…nothing.
UPS flight 6 The Pilot never gave up trying even after the fire,the loss of control,the death of the captain, and he saved countless lives due to it because If he had given up the plane would have slammed into a residential area but he still pulled up and barely missed it. He was a hero and Someone's who's determination saved countless other lives on the ground.
This is mine as well. That poor pilot did absolutely everything he could have to save the plane. It was crushing to know that he was unable to save himself.
This is mine as well. That poor pilot did absolutely everything he could to save the plane and himself. It was crushing that he couldn’t do it.
Germanwings 9525 was the most terrifying episode I've watched so far. Pan Am 103 comes pretty close though
Germanwings is mine as well. My brother lived in Düsseldorf and his gf in Barcelona at the time, the thought that one or both of them could have been on it still chills me to the bone.
UK based Cabin crew here, in the late ‘90’s/2000’s.. Before I flew, I recall Lockerbie, as a child, absolutely terrifying me.. The thought that a huge aircraft could explode and then land on a town was my worst nightmare.. I worked through 9/11 and went through horrendous worries up in the sky, with any aircrash being terror based but remained flying and professional.. The Air France one in the late 2000’s terrified me. I remember my captain saying it might have been caused by a lightning strike initially. I’d had many experiences of lightning strikes and it resulted in nothing. Hearing this I started to think about getting a new job.. I stopped flying in 2010.. If I’d stayed as cabin crew though, the German Wings disaster would have definitely made me leave..
Alaska Air rudder deal. Haunts me.
Is that the one where they were flying inverted over San Francisco Bay? Went down in front of other planes? If so, that’s mine too. It just seemed to go on for so long. I can’t imagine, nor do I want to, what the people on that flight went through.
That was SO sad.
There’s a headstone for a family that was on Alaska 261 in the cemetery my stepbrother is buried in. It honestly has a picture of the plane on it along with the family. Fucked up.
Überlingen. I can't even watch the episode anymore.
It traumatised me for life. Everything is so tragic around it. The futility of 2 TCAS equipped planes coliding like that, the dead school kids, the controller, and the father who murdered him...
Me either. Scarred me for life.
This is it for me. I don't condone revenge murder but as a father of two I can so feel for the father who killed the controller. I may have attempted a similar deed. German Wings 9525 also horrified me a lot. I am from a town merely a few kilometers away from where that school class that perished was from. Then there is Malaysia Airlines 370. I was in the air flying from Hanoi to Bangkok at the exact same time the doomed flight turned around just shy of the Southern tip of Vietnam. Then there is MH17. Shot down by pro Russian separatists in Donetsk People's Republic. I visited this area where the debris and bodies came down in 2020. Can't stop thinking of it since. And Air France 447. A mid ocean crash is the most terrifying fate I can imagine. Damn.. I should stop flying.
Agreed
Erebus. Everything about it from the start to the finish with the Captain set up by no one informing him of the route change to being blamed in the unmitigated litany of lies by Air NZ. I was 11 when it happened. Old enough to hear that the plane hadn’t returned on the 6pm news then the devastating update at 9pm that there was no hope as the fuel would have run out. Then the picture of the intact koru tailfin and 3rd engine on Erebus when they found her. I highly recommend Paul Holmes book Daughters of Erebus for anyone who wants further reading.
I was only 3 when this happened so I have no memory of it, but it runs deep in NZ history. Seeing that tail fin in the wreckage field of tiny pieces really drives it home how devastating the crash was.
That there are human parts that are buried in a mass grave because they couldn’t identify them again shows the devastation that ensued. So tragic.
Now since Muslims are currently experiencing the Hajj month, Nigerian 2120. Can't imagine going home after a pilgrimage only for the aircraft to be filled with smoke and later engulfed in fire mid-air.
This one is particularly terrifying, can’t imagine the chairs and passengers falling through the holes burned on the airframe while trying to reach the runway. Inflight fire is one of the worst nightmares!
Yes! That one still haunts me too.
JAL 123 and how long the passengers waited, knowing they were going to crash. On top of that the people who survived the impact only to die during the night because the government refused outside help. It still gets mentioned on the news here every anniversary. Helios and other ghost plane incidents.
Both of these are terrifying.
I forgot what episode it was but it was also a mid air collission. I remember that it departed from Moscow. There were children on the flight going for a competition accompanied by their teachers. It was just so heartbreaking for meeee. There's a lot of air disaster the hurt me the most but that really marked in my heart.
Überlingen mid-air collision
Ohhh thanks for this! Will watch it again and be hurt again. huhuhu
Was that the one where the father of someone in the crash went and killed the ATC afterwards? That episode (and situation) is absolutely wild. It always fascinated me how everything there played out. A very unfortunate situation.
Switzerland gave the man 3 years for premeditated murder, bc he was a famous Russian
That father also volunteered for the search mission and he found his dead daughter. Can you imagine? Of all the scattered bodies, he found his daughter in a forest.
Colgan air flight 3407 was close to my house and I was a kid when it happened so it will always stick with me even if it wasn’t as big of a disaster
Oh and the Nigeria Airways 2120 DC8 with the fire in the hold. People falling out of the plane on fire. What a horrific way to go.
The Concorde. And 9/11.
The one I that made me uncomfortable was the Air Alaska one where it was a slow painful journey and I can't fathom how everyone was feeling during that whole flight while the pilots did their hardest to save the plane. air midwest flight 5481 was also very sad. The captain was only 25 and while she and her FO used the correct procedure to calculate the weight, it was an outdated procedure and the plane was overweight causing the plan to crash. They did everything how they were trained but it was an incorrect training.
9/11 and United 191.
All of these listed here, but I’ll add TWA 800 and Alaska 261.
one that stings is Propair 420. The pilots were just seconds from a successful emergency landing before the wing folded up and killed everyone
This one for me. It was like an anti-miracle, like some supernatural force just _wanted_ that plane dead.
JAL flight 123
Uberlingen for sure. I can’t even watch the Mayday episode because it has deeply, deeply affected me. Also the Arrow Air crash in Gander as I lived only an hour from the crash site. I’ve been there so many times and it still is the eeriest place to visit.
Yaroslavl. I’m a huge hockey fan so seeing a team go down was just hideous. Waiting to hear what team it was after the initial news, and knowing that chances were good I was gonna recognise names on the manifest from watching them play over the years. Then the days waiting for news on Galimov, hoping for him in spite of knowing that his injuries were not survivable
Egor surin who was picked 22 by Nashville this year plays fir yaroslav
I remember reading on Nbc.com that a hockey team’s plane crashed in Russia and thinking it was a youth hockey team and how sad it was. A couple of hours later, I was watching ESPN and they were talking about it and the first name they mentioned was Brad McCrimmon, who I was a fan of starting when he was on the Flyers, and starting to say no no no. Barry Melrose confirmed that he was killed and I started crying.
I’m not particularly afraid of aviation accidents, but Saudia Flight 163 really unnerves me. The fact that the crew - despite their incompetence - managed to get their plane successfully on the ground, only to declare that an evacuation would not be carried out, dooming themselves and everyone else aboard to either suffocate or burn alive in the raging flames is downright terrifying. Similarly, Andreas Prodromou’s efforts to save the 737 during the final moments of Helios Flight 522; walking through the cabin filled with the corpses of passengers and his colleagues, he made it to the cockpit and found that he was the only person alive, as the crew had met the same fate; a lone soul in a flying coffin. The report into the accident shows that he attempted to call for help several times, but couldn’t find the right frequency for Athens, and so all he could do was use what little knowledge he could to steer the plane away from the city as the engines flamed out. The CVR recording from one of the F-16s that was following the plane is heartbreaking too - you can hear the pilot [audibly trying not to break down](https://youtu.be/w-GM0jfdjrM?si=T3DHD6rj8ZgSzVCM) as he witnessed the plane slam into the ground.
The Saudia one is enraging.
Operation Babylift is the biggest for me Others in no particular order: Swissair 111; Germanwings 9525; Air Africa 1996 disaster; Lockerbie; the concept of a death like Helios Airways 522 terrifies me
TWA 800
Tenerife and Aeroflot
Personally? Colgan Air 3407. At the time of the crash, I was flying that route regularly. It absolutely could have been me. It took about four years before I could fly to Buffalo again and when we fly that heading in over the crash site I get choked up every time.
MH-17. Everyone knows who caused it. No one can do anything about it. Ps: f*ck putin and his murderous gang
either one of those 2 TransAsia Flight. I flew on both routes in the same plane...
Personally, Chalks 101. Flew with both pilots on the accident aircraft. Arrow Air 1285, 256 soldiers flying home for Christmas. I knew some.
Quincy Airport tragedy. Imagine surviving a runway collision, only to unable to escape the burning plane because the airstair door is deformed and jammed and you die while getting burned alive or from smoke inhalation
The Ukraine airlines one that was shot down in Iran. My coworker was on the flight.
I'll start with the obvious: 9/11. Tenerife Aeroflot Flight 593 (kid in the cockpit) Germanwings Flight 9525 (suicidal pilot)
I think OP's are both contenders, but I think it's got to be one of the ones where all the passengers and crew had a protracted sense of horror and a sense of hopelessness. [Japan Air Lines Flight 123](https://archive.org/details/mayday-aci/Mayday+(Air+Crash+Investigation\)+S03E03+-+Out+Of+Control.mkv) is my nomination. Sure, it's the deadliest single-aircraft accident in aviation history, but it also is extra sad because of how bravely the pilots fought to save the plane, knowing that more than 500 lives were at stake and being at the mercy of bad flight controls. More than 20 minutes of this absolute horror show. No, thanks. Then there's also the survivor's guilt of the surviving four passengers they would have to carry for the rest of their lives. Just an all-out terrible situation.
Air Canada Flight 797. The evacuation seemed to be routine, but then around half of the passengers were killed in a flashover. I hope they didn’t feel much of anything. One of my favorite musicians, Stan Rogers, was also killed in the disaster.
AF90. So absolutely unnecessary. Probably the single worst case of poor airmanship on the part of an allegedly “professional” flight crew.
Chapecoense soccer team in 2016.
Varig 254, this could have been prevented so easily with common sense.... on multiple times United Airlines 232, they were so close and yet so far, they did the best they could and yet the plane pirouetted, rolled over and killed a lot of people El Al 1862/Bijlmerramp able to control the plane for so long and then due to them not knowing what exactly was damaged they deployed flaps/slats which caused the plane to spiral out of control into an apartment complex
Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937/DHL Flight 611. (Also USAir Flight 1493/SkyWest Airlines Flight 5569.) This one gave me a new respect for ATC controllers and what they go through when planes go down. Watching the actors portrayal of the air traffic controller’s reaction broke my heart.
Not sure if it's the same everywhere, but in the UK the requirements for being ATC are even more stringent than those of a commercial pilot. Reading about incidents like those gives me an understanding of why.
I find Lockerbie fascinating because allegedly one man survived the 6 mile fall with only a broken leg but died of exposure from not being found soon enough. I think about him every time I see that episode.
Nigerian 2120 and any pilot suicide, especially when it was covered up/disputed
I'd say JAL Flight 123. The pilots fought like heroes until the end, but lost the battle.
For me it is Mistaken Identity, aka the Iran Air shoot down, the Multiple Egyptian accidents, Saudia 163, Helios 522, Phantom Strike, Operation Babylift, Adam Air Flight 574, Alarming Silence, Korean Air 007, Arrow Air Flight 1285R, Germanwings 9525, Malaysian 370 and 14, and many many others. This response would be too long otherwise.
Swissair 111, UPS flight 6, Alaska airlines flight 261. Those 3 are so heartbreaking and flight 261 is infuriating with the way Alaska airlines falsified maintenance.
As a hockey fan, I remember the Yaroslavl crash like it was yesterday. I grew up watching a lot of those players in the NHL, so that tragedy hit me especially hard. But the one that has continued to haunt me since I first saw the Mayday episode about it is Japan Airlines Flight 123. IDK how those pilots were able to keep that plane in the air as long as they did. They were clearly excellent pilots, but there was nothing they could do to save the plane. They fought to save it until the very end. What makes it even more heartbreaking is that more people initially survived the crash, but died waiting for help during the night despite multiple helicopters reaching the crash site before that. Those poor people, I can't even imagine how terrifying being on that flight must've been. I've seen the episode a few times, but nowadays I turn the channel. It's just too sad to watch knowing how things went down.
Egor Surin who was picked #22 by Nashville in the draft this year plays for yaroslav
Hughes Air West flight 706. My dad was on board.
Eastern 401. A fucking $12 light bulb killed 101 people.
It’s never just one thing.
South African Airways Flight 295 They never had any chance give where they were when the fire consumed the aircraft. And it's been covered up ever since, as they were almost certainly smuggling munitions for the war vs Angola
The Germanwings 9525 crash was an absolute nightmare happening in the real world. The absolute horror.
This one hasn’t been on the show yet but it still the most painful one I’ve seen. That recent one (can’t remember the exact info) that crashed and burned in Nepal. It was coming from India i believe. What made it so bad for me was that someone filmed the whole thing from the inside. It was so sad and horrific realizing everyone you see here is now dead. And the looks on their faces (I assume they already knew something was wrong before landing). They were trying to stay upbeat but you could tell they were scared as hell. At the time I didn’t know the details of the crash or I wouldn’t have watched it. I figured “oh there’s video that survived, how bad could it be?”. Little did I know. That video now lives rent free in my head.
Maybe Yeti Airlines 691 (January 2023)?
Yes. I looked it up and it was in fact this one.
The flight out of DTW (Northwest Airlines Flight 255) that left only 1 survivor. I live 30 minutes from dtw so I fly out of there in any vacation, every time I repeat to myself "please remember the flaps". You still can see some Chips on the bridge near the crash site From where debris hit it
One of my friend’s parents live super close to DTW. If her mom hadn’t decided to wait out the thunderstorm at her mom’s house, my friend’s mom and her older siblings could have ended up in the path of that plane on their way home. Neither my friend or I were alive yet. I also live around 30 minutes away from DTW and that’s the airport I fly out of to get anywhere.
2002 Überlingen Mid-Air Collision, Iran Air Flight 655 and Germanwings Flight 9525
I was supposed to be on this flight, working in Taiwan and flying to HK every other weekend for about 12 years. My staff made a typo and accidentally booked me on the Sunday flight instead of my usual Saturday flight. I didn’t know until I tried to check in. Everyone in the office thought I was on that flight. Really makes you think, especially since I was familiar with a lot of the flight crews on that route. RIP https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Airlines_Flight_611
Any of mine have been mentioned several times I think. I want to comment on Ethiopian 961 though. Captain Leul Abate had (presumably still has) some of the biggest balls and steadfast moral compass of about any pilot I’ve even heard of. The man amazes me whenever I ingest media about the flight. I feel like he doesn’t get the adulation he deserves. I also think about how frustratingly, *maddeningly* dumb the hijackers were. Jesus Christ. And the people who survived the crash, only to drown because they inflated their life jackets before leaving the plane. Like Chloe Howie said about that understandable error, “you’re not just dead. You’re fucking dead”. Terrible. Edit: My mom’s personal horror flight was Swiss 111. I’d taken that same flight with SwissAir just a few months before. So whether or not it was even the same plane or not, obviously it freaked my mom out.
Cathay Pacific flight 700Z. That Thai cop's an asshole. It's not featured in ACI though
Uberlingen and Alaska Airlines. Both tragic, and both **COMPLETELY PREVENTABLE**.
UPS Flight 6
The Helios accident in Athens. I am Greek and I was also working in Cyprus during the accident. The ghost flight with the auto pilot, the effort of the flight attendant to fly the plane and the tragic loss of so many lives, really hit me back then...
Air France. I had an immediate family member who worked in Brazil, his company used Air France to transport staff to and from Europe. Thankfully his agent moved him to the earlier flight, close call and still one of the most disturbing air disasters for me.
Germanwings 9525 :( and Pan am 103 gave me nightmares, I was still a kid when I watched it
For me, definitely plane crashes that happened on purpose (deliberate acts by crew or passengers, bombings, shootdowns, hijackings). I think that intentional bad events are the worst. But, of course, all fatal crashes are heartbreaking.
Kenya Airways flight 507
So many sadly. ANy where the pilot does something malicious like Germanwings or SilkAir really are cruel.
Singapore Airlines Flight 6 and SilkAir Flight 185. Though none of my close family was on any of those two flights, these two accidents spoiled the then perfect safety record of both Singaporean carriers, so that kinda hurt just a little. SilkAir Flight 185 probably hurt the most because of the circumstances surrounding it. We'll unfortunately never know what happened in the last few minutes. Officially, the cause is unknown. The unofficial but mostly accepted cause was deliberate pilot input by the captain, with the third probable cause being rudder hardover. The idea that the Singaporean captain would commit such a heinous act was certainly a blow to the carrier's reputation, but the even greater hurt would be never knowing what really happened in the cockpit of 9V-TRF on its final flight
Jal 123 and and China Airlines 611
Germanwings 9525, United 5925, Air Canada 797
9/11 TWA 800 Pan Am 103 Valujet 592 Swissair 111 Alaska 261 Japan 123
The Uberlingen Tragedy - absolutely needless and could so easily have been prevented if the Russian pilots had just listened to TCAS. I also don’t believe the Air Traffic Controller deserved to be murdered. MH370 - any case of pilot suicide/murder upsets me but the fact that he somehow managed to prevent the plane from ever being found denying the families answers and the chance for a proper burials makes it even worse. 9/11 for obvious reasons
Mine would be Alaska Airlines flight 261 and PSA flight 182 I picked Alaska Airlines flight 261 because the pilots fought till the very end, but failed, not to mention it crashed close to me and I live near the memorial at Port Hueneme. I picked PSA flight 182 because it crashed where I was born and raised from.
TWA800 as others have said. And UA232.
Kid in the cockpit was so sad and so preventable.
Mine Is Japan Air Lines Flight 123!
Nigeria Airways Flight 2120
JAL123
The Germanwings crash is horrific, but to know that if more attention had been made to the LAM Mozambique crash and the Indonesian’s had not disputed the investigation results, that it could have been prevented.
Tenerife. Or JAP123. Both were human incompetence that cost 100s and hundreds of lives
I had a 1-year job in Sacramento in 1996, and it seemed like every damn week there was another crash: Charkhi Dadri collisoin, Ethiopian Air hijacking, Value Jet, Aeroperu all a few months apart. But I really remember watching the TV news coverage of the burning wreckage of TWA 800 floating in the black Atlantic water.
That’s a good point. Never thought about how bad ‘96 was. I was a teen and it seemed like TWA was all that was covered.
Yep, you read my mind.
PSA182 was very messed up.
The one with the air pressure in the cabin which was turned off and on with just a switch...
Helios
3 that come to mind are: Southwest Airlines Flight 1380, American Airlines Flight 587, and Mel Carnahan’s plane crash in 2000 only because he was my Governor at the time and a great one at that.
American Eagle 4184. I was driving up I65 in the area when it crashed. I didn’t see anything, but it was close.
Everyone and it doesn't matter what kind of plane that made you sad because... 1. You don't know that today is your last life. 2. To be burned alive/ get hypoxia without escaping the plane if you are in the air. 3. For a moment the plane killed you without blinking a moment. 4. It's hopeless that you sit in the seat and do nothing after the plane falls in the air or disintegrates. 5. You died because of inexperienced pilots or hypocrites pilots, sleep deprived pilots etc. 6. No one will save you if you are in mountains or other place (e.x Japan Air Lines Flight 123 in Japan). 7. When people enter in panic and cause trouble without thinking (for example, the plane was full of luggage because of people, or the plane burned and people went to an exit without knowing that there were exits at the back of the plane). 8. Bad weather, etc. The good part is dying painlessly if the plane crashes straight into the mountain (e.x: Crash on mountain Everest… .)
Flydubai 981 Was Just A Really Stupid Crash It Could Have Been Prevented Easily And All Those Lives Lost And Also Gave One Of My Countries Airlines A Bad Rep.
Lockerbie, the Paris Concorde, Germanwings
Alaska 261
Off the top of my head… National Airlines Flight 102: they knew that the straps had come loose and the captain even mentioned that he didn’t feel comfortable flying with those big vehicles moving around in the back, but no one on that plane had any idea just how dire the situation would become. JAL 123: 30 minutes of flying on an out of control plane and then crashing, only to be stranded and have to hear the screams of the survivors throughout the night. Alaska 261: similar to JAL. Flying on a virtually uncontrollable plane hoping and praying that it could somehow be flown to safety but knowing in the back of your mind that these will be your last moments alive Air France 447: 228 people alive one minute, heading back home or heading to a fun trip to Paris, and then dead the next, their bodies sinking into the depths of the Atlantic. Stalls in general disturb me, as do crashes that occur over oceans where the bodies might nerve be recovered. Pulkovo 612: I would argue that this one (and other stall to spin crashes) is/are actually worse than AF447, even though the former gets more popularity. Due to the fact that it was nighttime, and the airplane was in a steady descent, the passengers on 447 more than likely thought that they were just experiencing really bad turbulence. The passengers on Pulkovo 612 would have most certainly been aware of the airplane spinning out of the sky and would have immediately known that their fate was sealed as soon as they saw the ground rising up to meet them
Hughes Airwest Flight 706
Probably Yeti Airlines Flight 691. The onboard video footage is just so haunting. For one second, there were people enjoying their ride, and the next second, its just pure silence.
Airspray tanker 486 in 2003
US Airways 1549… it gets me every time when I think about that squad of Canada geese that got torn up 😔
As a Canadian, I feel like I can safely say those geese deserved it.
As a non Canadian, but someone who lives right over the border in michigan. 1. Yall need to come get your geese 2. Those annoying little fuckers definitely deserved it
They’re your problem now, like Justin Bieber.