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Air disasters

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Eastern Air Lines Flight 212

Eastern Air Lines Flight 212 was a controlled flight into terrain of a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 during approach to Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina. The incident occurred on September 11, 1974, killing 72 of the 82 people on board. The scheduled flight was from Charleston Municipal Airport to Chicago O'Hare, with an intermediate stop in Charlotte.

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Alaska Airlines Flight 261

Alaska Airlines Flight 261 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Licenciado Gustavo Díaz Ordaz International Airport in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico, to Seattle–Tacoma International Airport in Seattle, Washington, United States, with an intermediate stop at San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco, California. On January 31, 2000, the aircraft operating the route, a McDonnell Douglas MD-83, crashed into the Pacific Ocean about 2.7 miles (4.3 km) north of Anacapa Island, California, after suffering a catastrophic loss of pitch control. The accident killed everyone on board: two pilots, three cabin crew members, and 83 passengers.

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Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (MH370/MAS370) was an international passenger flight operated by Malaysia Airlines that disappeared on 8 March 2014 while flying from Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia to its planned destination, Beijing Capital International Airport. The crew of the Boeing 777-200ER, registered as 9M-MRO, last communicated with air traffic control (ATC) around 38 minutes after takeoff when the flight was over the South China Sea. The aircraft was lost from ATC radar screens minutes later, but was tracked by military radar for another hour, deviating westward from its planned flight path, crossing the Malay Peninsula and Andaman Sea. It left radar range 200 nautical miles northwest of Penang Island in northwestern Peninsular Malaysia.

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Munich air disaster

The Munich air disaster occurred on 6 February 1958 when British European Airways Flight 609 crashed on its third attempt to take off from a slush-covered runway at Munich-Riem Airport, West Germany. The aircraft was carrying the Manchester United football team, nicknamed the "Busby Babes", along with supporters and journalists. There were 44 people on board, 20 of whom died at the scene. The injured, some unconscious, were taken to the Rechts der Isar Hospital in Munich where three more died, resulting in 23 fatalities with 21 survivors.

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2001 Marsh Harbour Cessna 402 crash

On August 25, 2001, a Cessna 402 twin-engine light aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff from Marsh Harbour Airport on the Abaco Islands of the Bahamas, killing the pilot and all eight passengers on board. Among the victims were American singer, model and actress Aaliyah and members of her entourage, including a hairdresser, her bodyguard and a record executive. The group had just completed filming of the "Rock The Boat" music video and had chartered the flight to return to Florida.

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1958 Tybee Island mid-air collision

The Tybee Island mid-air collision was an incident on February 5, 1958, in which the United States Air Force lost a 7,600-pound (3,400 kg) Mark 15 nuclear bomb in the waters off Tybee Island near Savannah, Georgia, United States. During a practice exercise, an F-86 fighter plane collided with the B-47 bomber carrying the bomb. To protect the aircrew from a possible detonation in the event of a crash, the bomb was jettisoned. Following several unsuccessful searches, the bomb was presumed lost somewhere in Wassaw Sound off the shores of Tybee Island.

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US Airways Flight 1549

US Airways Flight 1549 was an Airbus A320 which, in the climbout after takeoff from New York City's LaGuardia Airport on January 15, 2009, struck a flock of Canada geese just northeast of the George Washington Bridge and consequently lost all engine power. Unable to reach any airport, pilots Chesley Sullenberger and Jeffrey Skiles glided the plane to a ditching in the Hudson River off Midtown Manhattan. All 155 people aboard were rescued by nearby boats and there were few serious injuries.

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Tenerife airport disaster

On March 27, 1977, two Boeing 747 passenger jets, KLM Flight 4805 and Pan Am Flight 1736, collided on the runway at Los Rodeos Airport, on the Spanish island of Tenerife, Canary Islands, killing 583 people, making it the deadliest accident in aviation history.

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John F. Kennedy Jr. plane crash

John F. Kennedy Jr., the son and namesake of the former U.S. President John F. Kennedy, died when the light aircraft he was flying crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, on July 16, 1999. Kennedy's wife Carolyn Bessette and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette were also on board and died. The Piper Saratoga departed from New Jersey's Essex County Airport; its intended route was along the coastline of Connecticut and across Rhode Island Sound to Martha's Vineyard Airport.

Wars and warfare, Transportation

Pan Am Flight 103

Pan Am Flight 103 was a regularly scheduled Pan Am transatlantic flight from Frankfurt to Detroit via a stopover in London and another in New York City. The transatlantic leg of the route was operated by Clipper Maid of the Seas, a Boeing 747-121 registered N739PA. Shortly after 19:00 on 21 December 1988, while the aircraft was in flight over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, it was destroyed by a bomb that had been planted on board, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew in what became known as the Lockerbie bombing. Large sections of the aircraft crashed in a residential street in Lockerbie, killing 11 residents. With a total of 270 fatalities, it is the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of the United Kingdom, as well as its deadliest aviation disaster.

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1972 Andes flight disaster

Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 was the chartered flight of a Fairchild FH-227D from Montevideo, Uruguay, to Santiago, Chile, that crashed in the Andes mountains on 13 October 1972. The accident and subsequent survival became known as the Andes flight disaster and the Miracle of the Andes.

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TWA Flight 800

Trans World Airlines Flight 800 was a Boeing 747-100 that exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near East Moriches, New York, on July 17, 1996, at about 8:31 p.m. EDT, 12 minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport on a scheduled international passenger flight to Rome, with a stopover in Paris. All 230 people on board perished in the third-deadliest aviation accident in U.S. history. Accident investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) traveled to the scene, arriving the following morning amid speculation that a terrorist attack was the cause of the crash. Consequently, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and New York Police Department (FBI-NYPD) Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) initiated a parallel criminal investigation. Sixteen months later, the JTTF announced that no evidence had been found of a criminal act and closed its active investigation.

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United Airlines Flight 93

United Airlines Flight 93 was a domestic scheduled passenger flight that was hijacked by four al-Qaeda terrorists on the morning of September 11, 2001, as part of the September 11 attacks. The hijackers planned to crash the plane into a federal government building in the U.S. capital of Washington, D.C. They failed in their primary mission when the passengers fought back, forcing the terrorists to crash the plane in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. The airliner involved, a Boeing 757-222 with 44 passengers and crew, was flying United Airlines' daily scheduled morning flight from Newark International Airport in New Jersey to San Francisco International Airport in California, making it the only plane hijacked that day not to be a Los Angeles-bound flight.

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Air France Flight 447

Air France Flight 447 (AF447/AFR447) was a scheduled passenger international flight from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Paris, France, which crashed on 1 June 2009. The Airbus A330, operated by Air France, stalled and did not recover, eventually crashing into the Atlantic Ocean at 02:14 UTC, killing all 228 passengers, aircrew and cabin crew on board the aircraft.

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Malaysia Airlines Flight 17

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) was a scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that was shot down on 17 July 2014 while flying over eastern Ukraine, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board. Contact with the aircraft, a Boeing 777-200ER, was lost when it was about 50 km (31 mi) from the Ukraine–Russia border and wreckage of the aircraft fell near Hrabove in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, 40 km (25 mi) from the border. The shoot-down occurred in the War in Donbass, during the Battle of Shakhtarsk, in an area controlled by pro-Russian rebels. The crash was Malaysia Airlines' second aircraft loss during 2014 after the disappearance of Flight 370 on 8 March.