About a year ago I wrote a post on my Facebook on this topic (www.facebook.com), I'll copy it here:

When discussing the topic of air crashes or accidents, I periodically hear the opinion that in Soviet times passenger air transportation were exceptionally safe, and then the USSR collapsed, chaos began in aviation, and flight safety fell sharply. Since I am very interested in aviation, I have long wanted to test this hypothesis and compare the safety of air travel in the USSR / Russia in different years, and take the United States as a reference point. Now hands have finally reached this lesson.

For this exercise, we will need: datasets (two pieces); time (120 min.); Stat (1 pc.); Excel (1 pc.); and most importantly, manual dexterity (dexterity - 1 piece, hands - preferably 2 pieces) and no fraud. So, we do the following:

We take here (http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IS.AIR.PSGR/countries/US?display=default) data on the number of passengers in the USA in 1971 - 2014 and Russia in 1991 - 2014. We add from here ( https://skorobutov.wordpress.com/2013/10/15/aeroflot-history-part-2-3-1973-1983/) data for the USSR for 1976 and from here (https://skorobutov.wordpress.com/ 2013/10/21/aeroflot-history-part-5-1983-1993/) - for 1990; by two points we build a linear interpolation for the USSR starting from 1971 (not an ideal assumption, of course, but I did not find better data for the USSR).

We take here (http://aviation-safety.net/database/country/) data on all aircraft accidents for Russia/USSR and the USA since 1971.

Note: Unfortunately, there the country sorting is based on where the plane crashed, not on the basis of which country the aircraft belongs to. So, for example, there is no Tu-154 crash over Donetsk in 2006. But, again, I have no other data, and manually sorting crashes is too long and boring.

Note 2 (taken from the comments): data on air crashes in Russia/USSR from this site include only crashes in the territory of modern Russia. At first I did not take this into account, and then I did not have time to redo all the data, but I took into account the largest (about 20 dead) air crashes on the territory of the Union republics manually. The remaining air crashes with relatively few casualties are unlikely to change the overall picture; moreover, the underestimation of catastrophes leads to an overestimation, not an underestimation, of the level of security in the USSR.

We clean the data. Will take into account only those who died on board the aircraft, but not on the ground (you can take into account everyone; I don’t think that this will change much); remove all missing and null victim values; delete "criminal" categories (H1 and H2, C1 and C2 - terrorist attacks, hijackings, seizures, etc., since they are not directly related to flight safety); if possible, remove private and military (for the USSR / Russia: Soviet AF, Polish AF, Russian AF, Soviet Navy; for the USA: USMC, US Army, US Coast Guard, USAF, US Navy, Mexican AF, Mali AF ) operators. For the USSR, for the sake of clarity, I removed the Japanese JAL plane crash; for the USA, I didn’t clean it further, since there are a lot of airlines.

Since there are still a lot of light aircraft crashes (just not private, but some kind of Horns and Hooves OgOgO), we remove all plane crashes with a number of victims less than 5 (again, not ideal, but at least so).

We group the data by five-year intervals: 1971 - 1975, 1976 - 1980, ..., 2006 - 2010, 2011 - 2014 (for 2015 there is no data on the number of passengers).

Divide the number of people killed in air crashes by the number of passengers (in millions). We draw the whole thing on a graph (at the same time we add separately graphs with the number of passengers and the number of dead).

Now some observations:

a) While the air travel industry was growing in the US and worldwide, in Russia it collapsed after the collapse of the Soviet Union and never recovered to the Soviet level (and this decline cannot be explained simply by the reduction in territory or population reduction caused by the collapse of the USSR).

b) Some kind of exceptional security Soviet aviation did not differ: on average, it was almost four times less safe than the American one.

c) There has been tremendous progress in air travel safety in the US. Modern aviation in developed countries is phenomenally safe.

d) Looking at the absolute number of deaths, overall the trend for Russia/USSR looks even better than for the US, but the situation changes dramatically as soon as we take into account changes in the number of passengers.

And, finally, to the answer to the main question: what is happening with the safety of transportation in Russia? In my opinion, the answer to this question depends on the angle from which you look at the situation. I will rely on the relative rather than the absolute number of fatalities, as it, in my opinion, better reflects the safety of flights.

Note: The change in passenger numbers does not account for the change in aircraft capacity. Modern aircraft are much larger than their 40-year-old counterparts, so there are fewer flights today to carry the same number of passengers on the same route. And the fewer flights, the fewer accidents, other things being equal. At the same time, a single plane crash now causes more casualties than in the past. In theory, these two effects more or less compensate each other. But in any case, since route network is constantly changing, I can’t estimate the number of flights performed from my data, and I don’t have exact data on the number of flights, so I work with what I have.

On the one hand, there was indeed a failure in the safety of transport in Russia in 1991-2010 (1996-2000 were a pleasant exception); the country fell back to the level of security characteristic of the USSR in the late 1970s and early 1980s. At the same time, it is not entirely clear what exactly caused this failure: a sharp deterioration in the situation after the collapse of the USSR, or an unexpected positive jump in security in 1986-1990 (most likely both).

Moreover, the situation with air transportation safety in Russia today, although inferior to the USSR of the period 1986-1990, looks much better than in any other Soviet period.

But still, it must be admitted that everything looks very bad with regard to the United States: in Soviet times, the gap between the USSR and the United States was much smaller than now; while air travel has become much safer in the US, nothing like this has happened here.

In other words, in post-Soviet Russia there was no progress in the field of aviation security that is typical for developed countries, and there was even a significant deterioration in the situation compared to the late USSR, but at the same time, even the worst Russian times are comparable to individual Soviet segments. That is, it cannot be said in any way that aviation in the USSR was very safe, and after the collapse of the USSR, something unprecedented began to happen.

Bottom line: in my opinion, the question should not be about how to return to the times of the USSR (because then there were a lot of flights and crashes too), but about how to get closer to the modern USA (because they fly a lot, a lot and almost completely safe).

P.S. It would be very interesting to look at this data in the context of individual airlines, but, unfortunately, there is no such detailed data on the number of passengers. For example, Aeroflot has not had any fatal accidents on passenger flights since 1994; Transaero has never had such accidents in its 24 years of existence; "Siberia" / S7 had only one such case (except for the terrorist attack and the plane, it seems like it was shot down Ukrainian rocket). There is a feeling that the leading Russian companies are now not much inferior to Western ones in terms of security, but it is not clear what is happening in small companies. But you shouldn’t take this as a call to nationalize and unite everything: the point is not the size itself, and even more so not who the owner is, but what is the level of training (and salary) of pilots, what is the safety culture in the company etc.

In this post, I would like to tell you about the biggest and worst plane crashes in the history of world aviation. Most of the stories that are described below are really creepy. In general, it is hard to believe that all this is possible ... For some reason, in real life everything does not always end with a happy ending, this is not a movie for you, Friends ...

In this context, I judged the most terrible disasters by the total number of victims in an air accident. The September 11 attacks in New York and Washington, in which thousands of civilians and passengers of the Boeing 767 and 757 aircraft hijacked by terrorists were injured, were not taken into account in the rating. Other information is also curious that from the 1970s to 2017, the number of disasters occurring has decreased by more than 3 times:

Plane crash in New York in 2009 with a happy ending

The article will be full of terrible disasters that claimed thousands of lives. I want to start such a tragic article with a rare case in world aviation. Thanks to the professionalism of the pilots, on January 15, 2009, 155 lives were saved. A US Airways Airbus A320 took off from New York Airport, but a few minutes later there were engine problems. Both engines were damaged and stopped due to the collision of the aircraft with a flock of birds. The pilots managed to land an almost uncontrollable car right into the Hudson. More than 1,000 people participated in saving the lives of passengers. Learn more about this terrible plane crash, but with a happy ending, from the video:

Plane crash in Tenerife - 1977

1. The largest and most tragic plane crash in the history of aviation occurred on March 27, 1977. On this tragic day on the Spanish island of Tenerife, 2 Boeing 747s of Pan Am and KLM collided on the runway. You can read more about the worst plane crash in which 583 people died.

Film about the plane crash in Tenerife:

Air accident in Japan - 1985

2. August 12, 1985 in Japan near famous mountain Fuji crashed a Boeing 747 of Japan Airlines (Japan Airlines). The plane crash in Japan is the second after the tragedy in Tenerife in terms of the total number of victims, and the largest single-aircraft accident in the history of aviation. As a result of the crash of a Boeing 747, 520 people died, only 4 passengers of the ill-fated Japan Airlines flight managed to survive. As a result of the investigation of the plane crash in Japan, it was found that the main cause of the tragedy was the mistakes and negligence made during the repair of the aircraft, as a result of which, during the fatal flight of the Boeing 747 with tail number JA 8119 lost control and crashed.

Film detailing the horrific plane crash in Japan (on English language):

Air crash in Delhi - 1966

3. On November 12, 1996, two planes collided in the air over Delhi: an Il-76 of Kazakhstan Airlines and a Boeing 747 of Saudi Arabian Airlines. As a result of a misunderstanding by the crew of the Kazakhstani IL-76 of the air traffic controller’s commands, the landing plane at a speed of 500 km / h crashed into the fuselage of a Boeing 747 flying towards the meeting. In a plane crash on November 12, 1996 over Delhi, all 2 aircraft on board died - 349 people. In addition to the error of the IL-76 crew, one of the reasons for the accident was that both aircraft were not equipped with a collision avoidance system.

The first excerpt from the National Geographic film about the plane crash in Delhi (you can also find the rest on YouTube):

Turkish Airlines plane crash - 1974

4. The biggest plane crash Turkish Airlines occurred on March 3, 1974 in France near Paris Orly airport(Orly airport). The crash was a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 airliner. The cause of the largest air crash in the history of the DC-10 aircraft was an error in the design of the cargo compartment door, as a result of which the door was simply torn off during the flight, which led to the subsequent depressurization of the cabin. The airliner became completely uncontrollable and crashed in the woods near Paris. As a result of the McDonnell Douglas plane crash Turkish airlines Airlines killed all 346 people on board.

Air India bombing - 1985

5. June 23, 1985 over the Atlantic Ocean south of the coast Boeing 747 bombed by extremists in Ireland airlines Air India, flying on the route Montreal (Canada) - London (UK) - Delhi (India). As a result of the terrorist act (bomb explosion) on board the plane in the crash of flight No. 182, all 329 people were killed. Sikh extremists also planned to blow up another Air India plane, but the bomb explosion took place prematurely in luggage compartment Tokyo airport.

Fire on a Saudi Arabian Airlines plane - 1980

6. On August 19, 1980, a Lockheed L-1011-200 TriStar of Saudi Arabian Airlines on flight 163 from Riyadh to Jeddah caught fire after taking off from International Airport Riyadh (Riyadh International Airport). 7 minutes after departure, a fire broke out in the cargo compartment of the aircraft, and the crew decided to return and make an emergency landing at Riyadh airport. As a result of numerous crew errors after a successful landing, all passengers of flight No. 163 died from poisoning by poisonous gases caused by fire. In total, 301 people died in this tragic and terrible plane crash, no one managed to get out of the cabin of the burning Lockheed plane ...

Iranian airliner shot down by US missile - 1988

7. On July 3, 1988, the American cruiser Vincennes mistakenly shot down an Iranian Airbus A300 airliner with 290 people on board over the Persian Gulf. Subsequently, in 1996, the US paid Iran $61.8 million in compensation for 248 deaths, at the rate of $300,000 for each able-bodied victim and $150,000 for each dependent.

American Airlines plane crash - 1979

8. On May 25, 1979, the worst plane crash in US history occurred when an American Airlines McDonnell Douglas DC-10 crashed 31 seconds after taking off from Chicago International Airport. The causes of the terrible tragedy were errors in pilot training and DC-10 repair technology. As a result of a terrible plane crash in Chicago, 271 people on board were killed, as well as 2 residents were killed when the plane crashed to the ground on the trailer parking next to the airport. But there could be many more victims ...

Watch a video of the worst plane crash in US history. Only in English, but very detailed.

1988 Libyan terrorist bombing of a Pan Am plane

9. On December 21, 1988, a Pan Am Boeing 747 flying from London to New York was blown up by Libyan terrorists over the Scottish city of Lockerbie. The plane crash over Lockerbie killed 270 people.

Korean Airlines crash - 1983

10. September 1, 1983 in airspace USSR over the waters Pacific Ocean A Korean Airlines Boeing 747 was shot down by a Soviet fighter-interceptor. The incident occurred due to a strong deviation of the New York-Seoul flight and its intrusion into the closed airspace of the USSR. As a result, a Boeing with 246 passengers on board and 23 crew members was shot down by 2 Soviet R-98 missiles.

11. In 2016, a TU-154 aircraft of the Russian Ministry of Defense crashed, killing 100 people (92 passengers and 8 crew members).

12. 2017 has been a relatively quiet year. In Kyrgyzstan, due to fog, a passenger Boeing-747 crashed while landing, falling on residential buildings. 37 people died.

Many people prefer to get to a particular region with the help of an airliner, because it is much more convenient and faster to travel by air than by train. According to statistics every 2-3 seconds a plane lands and takes off in the world. Is it worth it to give in to fear when you go on board an airplane? How often do planes crash? Such questions always torment passengers, especially those who rarely fly an aircraft.

Everyone fears for their lives, so it is not surprising why such questions arise. If you look at the news, which constantly talk about some kind of disaster, often associated with air travel, then immediately there is no desire to go somewhere. Of course, there is always danger. Even while staying at home, there is a risk of death, for example, from a gas leak. Thus, to fly or not to fly on aircraft is a very controversial issue, and here everyone decides for himself what is best for him to do. In order to understand how many airliners get into a disaster, consider the statistics.

How many planes crash a year is a question that interests many people, even those who are not going on a flight. You can provide the following data:

1. According to statistics, about 10,000 airliners take off into the sky every day.
2. Approximately 4.5 billion people fly in aircraft, which is more than half of the world's population.
3. Of these, about 1,000 people die in air crashes.
4. For 100 years passenger aviation 150,000 people died.

This figure is several times less than the number of victims in traffic accidents per month. So which one is safer to ride? The answer is obvious. In road accidents, people die much more often, so driving in cars is much more life-threatening than flying in airplanes.

According to statistics, since 2009 there have been 107 air crashes, with 3,245 passengers killed.

How often do planes crash in Russia?

Unfortunately, our country occupies a leading position in the ranking of countries that have undergone the largest number accidents. This is due to the fact that Russia is the largest power in the world. If we take the statistics from 2009, then in the Russian Federation there was the largest number of accidents related to airliners - 38 pieces. They killed 378 people. This is followed by America, where 11 incidents have occurred in the last 6 years. If we take into account the data for the entire existence civil aviation, then the first place is occupied by the United States of America.

• Russia (38 accidents);
• USA (11 for the period);
• Ukraine (7 in 6 years);
• Congo (6 over the same period);
• Germany (4 disasters in 2010).

What planes crash the most?

If we talk about which planes crash most often, here you need to give a rating of the most dangerous airliners. So the list is:

1. Boeing 737. This passenger aircraft was recognized as the most dangerous, as several plane crashes occurred on it.
2. IL-76. terrible disaster happened on this aircraft 13 years ago and claimed a lot of human lives.
3. Tu-154. It also had a lot of accidents.
4. Airbus A310. The last disaster was this year, which claimed more than 150 lives and only one girl managed to survive.
5. McDonnell-Douglas DC-9. It has been out of production for many years, but ready-made aircraft fly quite often. For the entire time of existence on board this aircraft only 44 people died.

Compared to the years of the last XX century, the number of air crashes, alas, has increased. Planes crash for various reasons. This may be a malfunction of the airliner itself, weather conditions, or a human factor. It is difficult to say unequivocally whether planes often fall. Compared to an accident, it is much safer to travel on an aircraft. But in general, you should not be afraid of aircraft, because on the ground the risk of dying is much greater than in the air.

The main reasons that can lead to a plane crash:

• Pilot Error - 50%
• Technical problems - 22%
• Weather — 12%
• Sabotage - 9%
• Error of other crew members - 7%
• Other reasons - 1%

Interestingly, disasters due to terrorist attacks occur in less than 1% of cases. But because of fires, disasters happen in about 2.9% of cases.

The table takes into account 1,300 fatal air crashes involving commercial airliners worldwide from 1950 to 2008. Air crashes with less than 10 passengers on board, with military, private jets and helicopters were not taken into account.

Air crash statistics by flight phase

* - during a flight lasting 1.5 hours

As you noticed, the biggest chance of getting into a plane crash is during a plane landing. But during the loading of people on board, the chances are so small that there are no statistics on the dead.

Air crash statistics by airline

Aeroflot's accident statistics show that this is one of the most safe airlines. And this is achieved primarily by skill, they do not save on pilots, and also by the fact that Aeroflot has one of the most modern fleets among all European airlines. First, I suggest you look at the video of the crazy emergency landing Boeing 767 of the Polish airline LOT at Warsaw airport. Fortunately, in this accident, thanks to the skill of the pilots, there were no casualties.

These statistics cannot be used to assess the reliability of aircraft or airlines. The indicators are calculated on the basis of past incidents and cannot be used to prevent or reduce expected risks. The safety/reliability assessment uses many other parameters that were not taken into account when compiling the table.

Based on materials from the site http://www.planecrashinfo.com/

Undoubtedly, the conquest of airspace by man can be attributed to one of the greatest events. But to our great regret, it was during this process that many brave testers died, who needed to test the work of the first aircraft in the airspace.

At present, air transport is the most convenient, fastest and most comfortable. After all, it is on an airplane that you can quickly cover a huge distance. But air transport, which seems so large and reliable both on the surface of the earth and in the sky, can still face numerous problems that lead to accidents. Which were the most terrible plane crashes world, we will consider in this article, and it would be useful to give a rating. After all, a variety of factors are the cause of accidents. We will consider the largest air crashes in the form of TOP-10.

The number of victims is 290. In early July 1988, an airbus belonging to the Iranian state was shot down by a United States cruiser. The tragedy happened in the area Persian Gulf. According to the statistics of the dead, there were 290 people, including 65 minors. According to the authorities of the United States of America, the crew of the sea vessel mistook the airbus for a military fighter, so they opened fire "to kill."

Location #9: 1980 disaster near Riyadh

In the summer of 1980, a terrible tragedy occurred near the city of Riyadh. Neither the passengers of the plane nor the crew members could survive in the crash. In total, she took the lives of 301 people. These people had a chance to be saved, but the Riyadh airport service did not show dexterity and resourcefulness, which did not allow timely opening emergency exit from air transport. The doors were open, but, unfortunately, too late, since more than 20 minutes had passed since landing, and this provoked an instant ignition of the cabin. The fire did not allow anyone to leave the air transport, so all people died a terrible death. Why the door did not open for so long, it was not possible to find out.

While in the sky on board this aircraft, a special device announced the start of a fire in the compartment carrying passenger cargo. The captain of the aircraft decided to turn around the air transport and land at the airport near the city of Riyadh, since the team, which did not speak a foreign language, could not deal with the existing instructions on firefighting on its own.

Place No. 8: 1996, the crash of the An-32B air transport

The number of victims is 298. Russian air transport was supposed to transport the cargo, there were crew members and a citizen of Zaire responsible for transporting the goods on board. The take-off was supposed to be carried out from the capital of the Congo, but during it the air transport could not take off from the ground. The runway had no guardrails, so the plane ended up in a market located near runway. Damage led to a fire, followed by an explosion that claimed the lives of 297 people, including all on board. The cause of the crash was the overload of goods for transportation.

Location #7: July 2014 Boeing 777 crash

The number of victims is 298. In the summer of 2014, a Boeing 777 belonging to a Malaysian airline flew from Amsterdam, the landing site was supposed to be Kuala Lumpur. A downed plane was found near Donetsk, Ukraine, where the confrontation was observed. Neither the Ukrainian nor the Russian side took the blame for this crime.

Airplane with a burning engine

Seat #6: Summer 1980, Boeing 747 Air Crash

The number of victims is 329. The largest air crash in the world over water occurred in the summer of 1980. Unfortunately, no one was able to escape. Both passengers and crew were victims of the crash. The tragedy befell the Boeing-747, which belonged to the Indian airline over the water expanses Atlantic Ocean which are considered neutral. The airliner carried out the flight "Montreal-Bombay", unexpectedly for everyone on board, a terrifying explosion was heard. Everything happened so quickly that the team did not even have time to send a distress signal to Earth. As a result of the explosion, air vehicle was destroyed in the sky. After the flight recorder was found, the experts were able to establish that the accident was organized by terrorists. Sikh extremists claimed responsibility for the attack.

Location #5: March 1974 DC-10 crash

The number of victims is 346. In the spring of 1974, a Turkish airliner that took off from Paris airport crashed after 6 minutes of flight. The air transport was discovered in the forest of Ermenonville, and no survivors could be found. The cause of the plane crash was the failure of the lock in the door leading to the cargo hold. At the moment of climbing, the faulty lock could not withstand the overload, during which the door opened wide open. As a result, decompression was formed, which, under the action of a blast wave, damaged the system responsible for managing air transport. The out-of-control airliner entered the so-called "dive", the fall of the aircraft lasted 1.5 minutes, until the transport reached the surface of the earth. Unfortunately, after this tragedy, the largest air crashes were replenished with another tragedy.

Place number 4: November 1996, the crash of two airliners - Boeing-747 and Il-76

The number of victims is 349. Air transport crashes for many reasons:

• due to technical problems;
• due to terrorist acts;
• in unforeseen situations;
• due to the fault of the crew.

It was the irresponsibility of people that led to another terrible tragedy that occurred in 1996, in the fall. In the area of ​​the city of Charkhi Dadri, an Il-76 and Boeing-747 aircraft crashed, the pilots of which failed to control the airliners in the sky, due to a lack of understanding of a foreign language by the pilot controlling the Il-76. A misunderstanding caused the plane to descend to an unacceptable level, which led to an inevitable collision. This is the largest plane crash in the world due to the human factor, during the crash, 349 people died. Survivors were found at the crash site, 4 people, but, unfortunately, they were not provided with timely assistance, so they died before reaching the nearest hospital.

Location #3: August 1985 tragedy aboard a Boeing 747

In the summer of 1985, a tragic fate befell a plane flying along the Tokyo-Osaka route. The air transport stayed in the sky for only 12 minutes, as the hydraulic system began to work intermittently, after a soft pop was heard by the team. For more than half an hour, the air transport crew tried to turn the aircraft around and land at the nearest airport. To do this, the team tried to use all the thrust generated by the engine, as the steering system completely refused to work. But despite the great efforts of the entire crew, the airliner could not be delivered to the airport, the ship crashed, crashing into a mountain called Otsutaka. The crash occurred at an altitude of 1.7 kilometers. It took more than 12 hours for the rescue teams to arrive at the scene of the tragedy, but despite such a long time, they managed to find 4 surviving passengers, among whom were two children. The death toll in this accident is 520 people.

Airliner crash site

Location #2: March 1977, crash of two Boeing 747s

In the spring of 1977, another terrible tragedy occurred that took the lives of 583 people. It happened due to the human factor, which led to the collision of two Boeing 747s. The planes collided with each other while taking off near the airport located in the city of Los Rodeos, due to the wrong command, which was announced by the dispatcher of one of the airlines. This tragedy has forced global aviation to rethink its previously used safety measures very carefully.

Location #1: Fall 2001 Airplane Attack

The biggest plane crash in the world was committed by a terrorist organization that called itself Al-Qaeda on September 11, 2001. On a terrible September day, terrorists seized 4 air transports at once, on board of which there were only civilians and crew. 2 airliners were redirected by terrorists to world-famous american towers to ram them. The third plane was forced to ram the Pentagon building. The terrorist organization redirected the fourth air transport to Pennsylvania. In this state the collapse of the last civil aircraft. These major air crashes in total took the lives of 2977 people, became victims of disasters.