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Capt. Christopher Stricklin ejected from his USAF Thunderbird aircraft at an airshow at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, on September 14, 2003. While making a dive, Strickilin realized he could not pull up in time and ejected after aiming the plane at a safe place. Stricklin was not injured.

An aviation accident is an occurrence on board an aircraft resulting in injury or death to one or more persons. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board definition of an aviation accident is as follows: Download high resolution version (1180x1368, 857 KB)Capt. ... Download high resolution version (1180x1368, 857 KB)Capt. ... EJECT is a promising Belgian Metal band, that mixes classic Thrash influences (Megadeth, Metallica, Slayer, ...) with influences from modern Metal bands in all genres (Dissection, Nevermore, Iced Earth, ...). This way they created what they themselves call Modern Dynamic Thrash Metal. Their songs are characterized by the many riffs they contain... Seal of the Air Force. ... The Thunderbirds are the Air Demonstration Squadron of the United States Air Force. ... The UK Utterly Butterly wing-walking display team flying Boeing Stearman PT-17 biplanes An airshow is an event at which aviators display their flying skills and the capabilities of their flying machines to the crowd. ... Mountain Home Air Force Base (Mountain Home AFB) is a base of the United States Air Force located near Mountain Home, Idaho in Elmore County, about 60 miles (100 km) southeast of Boise. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... September 14 is the 257th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (258th in leap years). ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... An Airbus A380, currently the worlds largest passenger airliner An aircraft is any vehicle or craft capable of atmospheric flight. ... Motto: (Out Of Many, One) (traditional) In God We Trust (1956 to date) Anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner Capital Washington D.C. Largest city New York City None at federal level (English de facto) Government Federal constitutional republic  - President George Walker Bush (R)  - Vice President Dick Cheney (R) Independence from... The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is a U.S. government independent organization responsible for investigation of accidents involving aviation, highway, marine, pipelines and railroads in the United States. ...

An occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft which takes place between the time any person boards the aircraft with the intention of flight and all such persons have disembarked, and in which any person suffers death or serious injury, or in which the aircraft receives substantial damage.

An aviation incident is an occurrence other than an accident, associated with the operation of an aircraft, which affects or could affect the safety of operations. Flight is the process by which a heavier-than-air animal or object achieves sustained movement either through the air by aerodynamically generating lift or aerostatically using buoyancy, or movement beyond earths atmosphere, in the case of spaceflight. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Injury is damage or harm caused to the structure or function of the body caused by an outside agent or force, which may be physical or chemical. ...

Other countries adopt a similar approach, although there are minor variations, such as to the extent of aviation-related operations on the ground, covered, as well as with respect to the thresholds beyond which an injury is considered serious or the damage is considered substantial. A hull-loss accident is one where the damage to the plane is such that it must be written off, or in which the plane is totally destroyed.

History

The first known aviation fatalities — the deaths of balloonists Pilâtre de Rozier and Pierre Romain on 15 June 1785.

Since the birth of flight, aircraft have crashed, often with serious consequences. This is because of the unforgiving nature of flight, where a relatively insubstantial medium, air, supports a significant mass. Should this support fail, there is limited opportunity for a good outcome. Because of this, aircraft design is concerned with minimizing the chance of failure, and pilots are trained with safety a primary consideration. Despite this, accidents still occur, though statistically flying is nowadays an extremely safe form of transportation. In fact, the relative rarity of incidents, coupled with the often dramatic outcome, is one reason why they still make headline news. Nevertheless, while the odds of actually getting caught in a plane crash are nowadays distinctly low compared to other means of transportation. It is a myth that the chances of not surviving such a disaster are notably higher, recent reports illustrate that 95% airline accidents are surviable. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (5000x3878, 3166 KB) Summary Deaths of balloonists Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and Pierre Romain. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (5000x3878, 3166 KB) Summary Deaths of balloonists Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and Pierre Romain. ... Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier. ... June 15 is the 166th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (167th in leap years), with 199 days remaining. ... 1785 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ...

Many early attempts at flight ended in failure when a design raised to a height for a launch would fail to generate enough lift and crash to the ground. Some of the earliest aviation pioneers lost their lives testing aircraft they built. This is a listing of early flying machines. ...

The first powered fixed-wing aircraft fatality in history occurred in 1908 when Lt. Thomas Selfridge was killed in this plane piloted by Orville Wright. (17 September 1908)

Otto Lilienthal died after a failure of one of his gliders. On his 2,500th flight (August 10, 1896), a gust of wind broke the wing of his glider, causing him to fall from a height of roughly 56 ft (17 m), fracturing his spine. He died the next day, with his last words being reported as Opfer müssen gebracht werden! ("sacrifices must be made"). Image File history File links First_powered_aviation_crash. ... Image File history File links First_powered_aviation_crash. ... An Air France Boeing 777, a modern passenger jet. ... Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge (1882-1908) Thomas Etholen Selfridge (February 8, 1882 – September 17, 1908) was a First Lieutenant in the US Army and the first person to die in a powered aircraft crash. ... Orville Wright (August 19, 1871 - January 30, 1948), the younger of the Wright brothers, seen as one of the fathers of heavier-than-air flight. ... September 17 is the 260th day of the year (261st in leap years). ... 1908 (MCMVIII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Otto Lilienthal Otto Lilienthal (23 May 1848 – 10 August 1896), the German Glider King, was a pioneer of human aviation. ... August 10 is the 222nd day of the year (223rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... Year 1896 (MDCCCXCVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display calendar). ...

Percy Pilcher was another promising aviation pioneer. Pilcher died testing The Hawk (September 20, 1899). Just as with Lilienthal, promising designs and ideas for motorized planes were lost with his death. Some other early attempts experienced rough landings, such as Richard Pearse who is generally accepted to have crash landed (survived) a motorized aircraft in some bushes, unable to gain altitude after launching it from some height. Percy Sinclair Pilcher (1866-1899) was an English inventor and pioneer aviator who, in one of the big what if events of history, could well have become the first person to achieve controlled, powered, heavier-than-air flight well before the Wright brothers had he not been tragically killed in... September 20 is the 263rd day of the year (264th in leap years). ... 1899 (MDCCCXCIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Richard Pearse For the film director, see Richard Pearce. ...

The Wright Flyer nearly crashed on the day of its historic flight, sustaining some damage when landing. Three days before, on a previous flight attempt, Wilbur Wright overcontrolled the aircraft in pitch and crashed it on takeoff, causing minor damage in the first known case of pilot-induced oscillation. The Wright Flyer (often retrospectively referred to as Flyer I and occasionally Kitty Hawk) was the first powered aircraft designed and built by the Wright brothers. ... Wilbur Wright (April 16, 1867 - May 30, 1912), the elder of the Wright brothers, seen as one of the fathers of heavier-than-air flight. ... Pilot-induced oscillations (PIO) occur when the pilot of an aircraft inadvertently commands an often increasing series of corrections in opposite directions, each an attempt to correct for the previous overcorrection with an overcorrection in the opposite direction. ...

US Army Lt. Thomas Selfridge became the first person killed in a powered fixed-wing aircraft on September 17, 1908 when his aircraft, piloted by Orville Wright, crashed after propeller separation failure during military tests at Fort Myer in Virginia. Selfridge died of a fractured skull. Wright suffered broken ribs, pelvis and a leg. The Army is the branch of the United States armed forces which has primary responsibility for land-based military operations. ... First Lieutenant Thomas Etholen Selfridge (February 8, 1882 – September 17, 1908) was the first person to die in a powered aircraft crash. ... An Air France Boeing 777, a modern passenger jet. ... September 17 is the 260th day of the year (261st in leap years). ... 1908 (MCMVIII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Orville Wright (August 19, 1871 - January 30, 1948), the younger of the Wright brothers, seen as one of the fathers of heavier-than-air flight. ... Orville Wright flying at Fort Myer, September 17, 1908. ...

Causes

The 1984 Controlled Impact Demonstration of a Boeing 720 aircraft using standard fuel with an additive designed to suppress fire. Though the aircraft caught fire, results were better than would have been expected without the additive.

Approximately 80 percent of all aviation accidents occur shortly before, after, or during takeoff or landing, and are typically the result of human error and/or unregarded technical problems within an aircraft; mid-flight disasters are rare and makeup 6% of incidents. Among other things, the latter have been caused by bombs as in the 1988 Lockerbie incident, mid-air collisions such as in the 2002 Überlingen crash or in cases of (purportedly) mistaken identity where civilian aircraft were shot down by military (compare Korean Air Flight 007). Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1200x540, 871 KB) [edit] Other pictures Practice approach Slapdown Pre-impact Post impact 1 Post impact 2 Post impact 3 Instrumented crash test dummies File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1200x540, 871 KB) [edit] Other pictures Practice approach Slapdown Pre-impact Post impact 1 Post impact 2 Post impact 3 Instrumented crash test dummies File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects... Practice approach Pre-impact Post-impact 1 Post-impact 2 The Controlled Impact Demonstration (or jokingly Crash In the Desert) was a joint project between NASAs Dryden Flight Research Center and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to test the impact of a Boeing 720 aircraft using standard fuel with... Pan Am 707 The Boeing 707 is a four engined commercial passenger jet aircraft developed by Boeing in the early 1950s. ... The Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb, also known as Mother Of All Bombs, produced in the United States. ... 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Pan Am Flight 103 was Pan American World Airways third daily scheduled transatlantic flight from Londons Heathrow International Airport to New Yorks John F. Kennedy International Airport. ... For album titles with the same name, see 2002 (album). ... Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937 was a Russian aircraft which collided with a DHL-owned cargo plane, on July 1, 2002 at 21:35 (UTC), near the German town of Ãœberlingen, near Lake Constance. ... Korean Air Lines Flight 007, also known as KAL 007 or KE007, was a Korean Air Lines civilian airliner shot down by Soviet jet interceptors on September 1, 1983 just west of Sakhalin island. ...

An accident survey [1] of 2,147 aircraft accidents from 1950 through 2004 determined the causes to be as follows:

• 45%: Pilot error
• 33%: Undetermined or missing in the record
• 13%: Mechanical failure
• 7%: Weather
• 5%: Sabotage (bombs, hijackings, shoot-downs)
• 4%: Other human error (air traffic controller error, improper loading of aircraft, improper maintenance, fuel contamination, language miscommunication etc.)
• 1%: Other cause

The survey excluded military, private, and charter aircraft.

A study by Boeing [2] (page 19) determined the primary cause of Airline hull loss accidents (worldwide commercial jet fleet), from 1996 through 2005, to be:

• 55%: Flight Crew error
• 17%: Airplane
• 13%: Weather
• 7%: Misc./Other
• 5%: ATC
• 3%: Maintenance

That study included 183 accidents, with known causes for 134 of them. The remaining 49 were unknown, or awaiting final reports.

Previous Boeing studies showed higher rates for Flight Crew Error:

• 70%: 1988 - 1997
• 67%: 1990 - 1999
• 66%: 1992 - 2001
• 62%: 1994 - 2003
• 56%: 1995 - 2004

Safety

Safety has improved greatly since the early days of aviation. The two major aircraft manufacturers, Boeing and Airbus, have both made safety a major selling point, because a poor safety record would be a threat to their corporate survival. Consequently safety equipment for aviation is now a billion-dollar industry in its own right. The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA, TYO: 7661 ) is an aerospace and defense corporation headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. ... This article is about the airliner manufacturer. ...

Some major safety improvements in commercial aircraft have included:

• Multiple redundancy in all critical systems and manual back-up such as landing gear that can be lowered even after loss of power and hydraulics
• Avionics such as Airborne Collision Avoidance Systems and other computerized warning systems.
• Engine reliability improvements
• Evacuation slides - to aid rapid passenger exit from aircraft in emergencies
• Better training of flight crews using flight simulators
• Greater understanding of human behavior of pilots and ground crews

In comparison with other forms of transport, air has a far lower risk of death per passenger mile than road. It however remains significantly less safe than rail.[3] Main and nosewheel undercarriage of a Qatar Airways Airbus A330 The undercarriage or landing gear is equipment which supports an aircraft when it is not flying. ... The onboard electronics used for piloting an aircraft are called avionics (AVI-ation electr-ONICS). ... Airborne Collision Avoidance System (ACAS) provides pilots with a system independent of air traffic control to detect the presence of other aircraft which may present a threat of collision. ... This machine has a single-stage radial compressor and turbine, a recuperator, and foil bearings. ... Interior cockpit of a modern flight simulator A flight simulator is a system that tries to replicate, or simulate, the experience of flying an aircraft as closely and realistically as possible. ...

Investigatory agencies

In the United States, many civil aviation incidents have been investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board. When investigating an aviation disaster, NTSB investigators piece together evidence from the crash and determine the likely cause(s). Image File history File links NTSB Seal (Bigger image would be great) File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is a U.S. government independent organization responsible for investigation of accidents involving aviation, highway, marine, pipelines and railroads in the United States. ...

In the United Kingdom, the agency responsible for investigation of civilian air crashes is the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) of the Department for Transport. Its purpose is to establish the circumstances and causes of the accident and to make recommendations for their future avoidance. Image File history File links AAIB Logo File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... The Air Accidents Investigation Branch investigates air accidents in the United Kingdom. ... In the United Kingdom, the Department for Transport is the government department responsible for the transport network. ...

See also

Lists of commercial airliner accidents

• Grouped by airline
• Grouped by location
• Grouped by year
• Grouped by cause (see subcategories)
• Grouped alphabetically
• Notable mid air collisions

JetBlue Airways Flight 292 making an emergency landing with the nose landing gear turned sideways The following is a list of accidents and incidents on commercial airlines grouped by airline. ... Accidents and incidents on commercial airliners grouped by location of the incident. ... // Accidents and incidents on commercial aircraft grouped by the year that the incident or accident occurred. ... The doomed Boeing 727, PSA Flight 182, crashes in flames after colliding with another aircraft in 1978 A mid-air collision (MAC) is an aviation accident where two or more aircraft come into unplanned contact during flight. ...

Lists of military aircraft accidents

• List of notable incidents and accidents on military aircraft
• List of Coalition aircraft crashes in Iraq

This is a list of notable incidents and accidents involving military aircraft grouped by the year that the incident or accident occurred. ... The UH-60 Black Hawk that crashed on September 21, 2004 Below is a list of Coalition aircraft that have crashed in Iraq. ...

Air safety

• Air safety
• National Transportation Safety Board (US investigation authority)
• Air Accidents Investigation Branch (UK investigation authority)
• Transportation Safety Board of Canada (Canada investigation authority)
• Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses pour la sécurité de l'Aviation Civile (France)
• Bundesstelle für Flugunfalluntersuchung (Germany)
• Aviation archaeology

Air safety is a broad term encompassing the theory, investigation and categorization of flight failures, and the prevention of such failures through appropriate regulation, as well as through education and training. ... The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is a U.S. government independent organization responsible for investigation of accidents involving aviation, highway, marine, pipelines and railroads in the United States. ... The Air Accidents Investigation Branch investigates air accidents in the United Kingdom. ... The Transportation Safety Board (Bureau de la Securite des Transports du Canada) is the Canadian agency responsible for maintaining transportation safety in Canada. ... The Bureau dEnquêtes et dAnalyses pour la sécurité de lAviation Civile (BEA) is an agency of the French government, responsible for investigating aviation accidents and making safety recommendations based on what is learned from those investigations. ... The Bundesstelle für Flugunfalluntersuchung (translation: German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Investigation) is the German federal agency responsible for air accident investigation. ... Aviation archaeology, also known as aerospace archaeology or wreck chasing, is a hobby actively practiced throughout the world by both outdoor recreationists and academics in pursuit of finding, documenting, recovering, and preserving sites important in aviation history. ...

Other

• Disaster
• Aircraft hijacking
• List of deaths by aircraft misadventure
• List of people who died in aviation-related incidents
• List of space disasters
• Accident Analysis

Hijackers inside flightdeck of TWA Flight 847 Aircraft hijacking (also known as skyjacking and aircraft piracy) is the take-over of an aircraft, by a person or group, usually armed. ... This is a list of famous people who have died by various forms of aircraft misadventure. ... This is a list of some well-known people who have died in aviation-related events. ... Test pilot Stuart Present ejects safely from the Lunar Landing Training Vehicle. ... Accident Analysis is a form of Behavioural Systems analysis. ...

External links

• Aviation Safety Network Established in 1996. The ASN Safety Database contains descriptions of over 12200 airliner, military and corporate jet aircraft accidents/incidents since 1943.
• National Transportation Safety Board Accident Database & Synopses
• [4], editorial citing examples of most severe consequences of pilot error and other human error
• Check-Six.com Celebrities/Famous People Killed in Plane Crashes
• PlaneCrashInfo.com Data, photos and sounds.
• Computer-Related Incidents with Commercial Aircraft: A Compendium of Resources, Reports, Research, Discussion and Commentary, compiled by Peter B. Ladkin et al.
• AirDisaster.com An online aviation accident database.
• 1001 Crash - Aircraft accidents videos, analysis, database, statistics, blacklist, fearful flyers.
• Aviation Accident Causes & Information
• WikiHow How To Survive A Plane Crash