The most mysterious plane crashes and disappearances in the history of aviation. Unexplained plane crashes

Since ancient times, man has dreamed of conquering air space. Many in their dreams flew on fabulous flying carpets, or became riders of unusual birds with huge wings. And it took many centuries for mankind to fulfill its dream...

Leonardo da Vinci was the first to create the theory of flight: he depicted the design of an aircraft on paper. This miracle machine was powered by the muscular strength of a person. But the great Leonardo did not go beyond theoretical developments: people did not possess the necessary knowledge and skills for the actual construction of this aircraft.

Scientists different countries tried to build aircraft. Russian scientists also made their contribution: M.V. Lomonosov, E.S. Fedorov, M.A. Rykachev and, especially, D.I. Mendeleev. They managed to create a deeply grounded theory to solve this problem. And the Russian inventor and outstanding designer A.F. Mozhaisky built the first Russian aircraft.

Centuries have passed. Today, flying by plane has become commonplace for each of us, like the use of any other mode of transport. But at the same time, flights have always been convenient, but enough dangerous view movement. After all, machines, as well as people, are not perfect. And any, even minor oversights in the operation of equipment can lead to the death of people. Each aviation accident is a warning and a lesson for the creators of aircraft. As a rule, it is very difficult to find the causes of air crashes - for objective and subjective reasons.

Thus, there is a strong opinion that the high accident rate of aircraft is associated with an unsuccessful design. And in this regard, the history of the An-10 aircraft is often recalled. Exploitation passenger airbus An-10 (developer - design department O.K.Antonov) began in 1971. Over the entire period of operation of this aircraft on Soviet airlines, more than 35 million passengers and about 1.2 million tons of various cargoes were transported. But on account of this aircraft and 12 accidents in which 370 people died. According to the pilots, the An-10 was operated by them in the most difficult conditions. They told the designers: “Machines of the same class, IL-18, land on good airfields and they are less likely to have any troubles, and if necessary, you can somehow help. And we drive your “top ten” through all sorts of holes and are always afraid: how will it end? After biggest plane crash with the An-10 near Kharkov, in 1973 it was decided to stop the operation of this aircraft.

But if, in this case, the expert identified a design error in the creation of the An-10, then many aircraft crashes remained mysterious and inexplicable from the point of view of the knowledge that we now possess.

On December 5, 1945, five US Air Force aircraft took off from Fort Lauterdale. The flight was led by Ch. Taylor. The flight passed without complications, the weather was clear, the team had an experienced instructor. Nothing foreshadowed trouble. But after 90 minutes of flight, the pilots fell into a state of disorientation - they did not recognize the area over which their path lay. The compasses are out of order. Mission control urged Taylor to return to base, but the flight director stubbornly continued flying farther out to sea. Soon contact with the aircraft was lost. And still no one knows anything about them. The rescue plane sent to the rescue also disappeared from the radar and finally disappeared. Interesting fact: Taylor tried very hard to get off the flight that day, but he was denied.

On December 31, 1999, an EgyptAir plane crashed into the water during a flight across the Atlantic Ocean. The accident was investigated by specialists from the US National Transportation Safety Administration and the Egyptians. Both commissions gave different conclusions on the reasons for the death of the liner. The Americans were sure that the co-pilot deliberately caused the plane to crash, since he had pronounced suicidal tendencies. The Egyptians believed that technical breakdowns were the cause of the crash. And although the cause of the tragedy remained unclear, there is a record of the pilots' conversations: one asked, “What is it? What's happened? Did you stop the engines?", to which the second replied: "I hope in God."

The Star Dust aircraft were passenger version military bomber Lancaster. In 1947, such an aircraft made regular flight from Buenos Aires to Santiago. He disappeared, flying over the Andes, when there were no more than two minutes left before landing. But the plane's radio operator, a moment before the disappearance, managed to transmit a very cryptic message - "STENDEC". Only 50 years later it was possible to discover the wreckage of this aircraft, frozen into a huge glacier. It was assumed that Star Dust veered off course and crashed into the mountains covered with clouds. But the discovery still did not reveal the secret of the word "STENDEC", which means that the mystery of the plane crash has not been solved.

For some reason, many people are afraid of the number 13. In some hotels there is no 13th floor, there is no number in the wardrobes with this number, etc. In aviation, the number 191 has become such an “unlucky” number. There was a whole series of crashes of flight 191. Many airlines no longer assign this number to flights.

One of the biggest crashes of Flight 191 is considered to be a flight operated by American Airlines. As a result, 273 passengers died.

In 2012, on JetBlue Airways Flight 191, the pilot started whispering loudly about terrorists, 9/11, and Jesus. The co-pilot had to take him out of the cockpit into the cabin, where the passengers tried to calm him down. Subsequently, the pilot was treated in a psychiatric hospital.

Since there is no acceptable explanation for the bad luck of flights with this number, one can only assume that this is a mere coincidence. Although numerologists are still trying to understand the "true essence" of this number.

During the years of military confrontation between the United States and Vietnam, an equally strange incident occurred with the Super Constellation L-1049 aircraft. His task was to transport ammunition and soldiers from California to Saigon. The plane disappeared without a trace while flying over the Philippine Sea. Many units of the US Army participated in the search, but no traces of the disaster were found. Due to the lack of any information about this flight, a lot of assumptions were made. However, eyewitnesses claim that they saw a bright flash of light in the area over which the plane was supposed to fly.

In 1996 there was major disaster with TWA Flight 800 - the plane crashed into the ground 12 minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy Airport. As a result, 230 people died. And although the commission found that the cause of the disaster was a faulty electrical wiring, hundreds of eyewitnesses claim to have seen a bright beam of light approach the plane, and then a fireball appeared. Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that at that time military exercises were taking place nearby, and the plane could have been shot down by mistake by a missile. Most likely, the FBI knows the truth, because only the special services had full access to radar data, information from military bases and other sources that could help solve this difficult task.

Aviation accidents are tragedies that claim hundreds and hundreds of lives. The reasons are different: technical malfunctions, errors of pilots and dispatchers, malicious intent, etc. But, unfortunately, there are also cases when the cause of the disaster remains unknown, and this gives rise to fear of flying and distrust of the crews of the airliners, to the airfield technical services and, finally, to the aircraft designers.

By the way, the expert who found a technical flaw in the An-10 aircraft and, thanks to whose conclusion, this type of aircraft was decommissioned by passenger airlines, was a pariah among the Soviet aviation elite for a long time. But he did not regret his act - he believed that the saved human lives were much more expensive than his personal well-being.

Let's start with a case that can even be called almost hilarious. Unfortunately, this cannot be said about many of the other stories on our list.

Company airliner british airways was heading from English Birmingham to Spanish Malaga, taking on board 87 passengers and crew. He did not manage to soar in peace for a long time. Already 13 minutes after takeoff, the glass of the cockpit was torn off by a stream of air, and the crew commander was literally sucked into the window opening. A man is stuck in the windshield, half leaning out of a flying jet!

Then something incredible happened. The crew members, who reacted in time, grabbed the captain by the legs, preventing him from falling overboard. It is clear that no one will survive in such conditions, but, firstly, this would not allow the liner to completely depressurize, and most importantly, if they released the pilot, the body could ram the vital elements of the aircraft at full speed. Then things would have turned out quite horribly. But everything was going so lousy, especially since the cockpit door was blown off and the pieces fell on the console.

The crew began to calm the passengers and request an emergency landing from the ground services. The plane landed at Southampton 25 minutes after the start of the flight. All this time, the flight attendant held his icy comrade.

Immediately after landing, it turned out that the captain had a pulse, and he was urgently hospitalized. And, as the song says, they brought him home, he turned out to be alive! The team not only landed the plane, but also saved everyone on board! The co-pilot, the stewardess and all their colleagues immediately became national heroes. Almost all of them returned back to civil aviation.

The cause of the incident turned out to be the gouging of a mechanic, who, when replacing glass, took bolts of the wrong size from the warehouse.

Boeing 737, April 28, 1988

Imagine a banal small-town flight Hilo - Honolulu with 89 relaxed passengers and six crew members (where without them!). At the 23rd minute of flight at a speed of 500 kilometers per hour, a colossal piece of skin passenger compartment tore off and carried away to the beautiful far away. Everyone who was in the liner found himself face to face with a riot of air flow and a temperature of minus 45 degrees. But this is Hawaii, the passengers are dressed in a tropical way!

The team was not at a loss and immediately began to descend for emergency landing. The most terrible thing was that the instruments showed: the chassis was also faulty! Fortunately, the airport controllers saw that the landing gear actually came out of its niche safely, and transmitted good news to the ship. Everyone survived, except for a single unfortunate stewardess, who was blown away by a stream of air.

Cause of the accident: metal fatigue and corrosion. Ride, they say, in a convertible ...

A310, March 23, 1994

One of the most terrible chapters in the history of Russian civil aviation. Aeroflot operated flight number SU593 from Moscow to Hong Kong. After four hours of flight, the plane disappeared from radar over Mezhdurechensk, that is, in the Kemerovo region.

Air crashes are always a nightmare, but when the reasons for this were revealed, even the hairs of the world-wise forensic experts and aviation experts stood on end. The liner was in perfect order. Weather conditions too. Just in the midst of the flight, the pilots let their children and friends into the cockpit, and not only let them in, but also let them steer. 39-year-old pilot Yaroslav Kudrinsky, violating all possible instructions and simply the requirements of common sense, first put his daughter at the helm, and then his son.

The relaxed crew was fully confident that the plane was controlled by an autopilot, but the automatics turned off due to too sharp play with the helm of fifteen-year-old Eldar, the son of Kudrinsky. Moreover, it took too long for the small brains of the pilots to realize that an emergency situation was taking place. Further, trying to fix it, they panicked and behaved as irrationally as possible. Tumbling in the air (imagine what it's like for unbelted passengers!), The liner crashed to the ground. All 63 passengers and 12 crew members died.

The subsequent investigation showed that if the pilots had not panicked, but had let the liner's automation work according to the prescribed algorithm, the plane would have leveled itself and calmly continued the flight!

There is a phenomenon in our world worse than driving minibuses.

Boeing 747, August 12, 1985

The largest single-aircraft crash in terms of the number of victims occurred, oddly enough, in a country whose workers are famous for their meticulousness, pedantry and professionalism - in Japan. And it's an incredibly sad story.

A JAL Boeing 747 was making a short domestic flight JAL from Tokyo to Osaka city. The flight there is only 500 kilometers, that is, less than an hour, but this is an incredibly popular route during the holidays, which is why the Boeing 747. 12 minutes after the liner left the airport, almost all key flight control and stabilization systems failed. Even duplicates! The pilots could not understand what was happening, they kept the plane in the air with superhuman skill, using only maneuvering engines and flaps. The liner constantly tossed, dropped and shook. 32 minutes of such a flight seemed to passengers worse than hell. If the pilots knew what the problem was, they would have become even worse: the Boeing's tail stabilizer was completely torn off, the plane was doomed. It is enough to look at a photo taken from the ground so that even a layman who is far from aviation understands this.

The plane crashed into a mountain 112 kilometers from Tokyo, some of the passengers miraculously survived, but the rescue operations were organized truly ugly, help came late, and only four were saved. A total of 520 people died.

The cause of the disaster was called the careless repair of the tail section by ground services with a deviation from the instructions.

A330, August 24, 2001

Now about the good. Record-breaking planning of an airliner with idle engines was demonstrated during this incident.

An Airbus A330-243 was heading from Toronto to Lisbon with three hundred people on board ( airline Air Transat), at the sixth hour of the flight, the crew suddenly encountered a fantastic fact: the Atlantic Ocean is below them, and they have not an ounce of fuel!

Everything that followed would have been considered an invention of Hollywood screenwriters if it were not true. One of the pilots remembered that 320 kilometers away from them, a military air base had spread its hangars on Azores where they turned. For 217 kilometers to the target, one of the engines had to be turned off. A few minutes later - the second. Unfortunately, there were no other engines, as well as sources of fuel, in this aircraft.

By the way, so that when the engines are inactive, instruments and radio communications do not turn off, the aircraft are provided with an ingenious emergency power supply system: something like a dynamo-weather vane, which is released from the body and spins under the pressure of the oncoming air flow.

Everyone was saved by the phenomenally rich experience, training and ingenuity of the crew commander. He was able to calculate, on the fly, with the highest accuracy, the gliding coefficients of an aircraft without thrust, so as not only to reach the runway, but also so that its speed would allow it to land safely. Moreover, no one, for obvious reasons, would have presented them with a second landing attempt.

Despite the calculations and maneuvers, the landing speed was still slightly higher than the recommended one, the plane slipped an extra kilometer behind the runway, and almost all of its tires burst. Of the 306 people, no one was hurt! The pilots were awarded and bear the title of record holders who kept a passenger aircraft in the air on a glider force for 120 kilometers!

The culprits of the accident are, as in most similar stories, ground technicians who messed up during the installation of the hydraulic system and provoked a leak.

Alarming reports of planes missing from the radar, as a rule, portend further searches for debris and confirmation of the fact of a plane crash. But it also happens that the liners disappear without a trace, and after 2 months of searching, passengers turn out to be alive.

In the morning Greek island Karpathos crashed an airline plane en route from Paris to Cairo. On this moment the wreckage of the liner has already been discovered, but the first messages that foreshadowed trouble, as often happens, began with the words "disappeared from the radar." An aircraft that did not make contact or disappeared from radar is an alarming sign, in most cases foreshadowing further search operations and confirmation of information about the crash. But not everything always goes according to the scenario described above. It is not uncommon for a missing aircraft to never be found, and the complete absence of traces of a disaster can dissuade that it really happened. It happens that an aircraft that has not been contacted is still found, but the causes of the crash remain a mystery.

One of the latest examples mysterious disappearance - the case of the Malaysian "Boeing". March 8, 2014 aircraft Malaysia Airlines, bound for Beijing, disappeared from radar 40 minutes after taking off from Kuala Lumpur. After several hours of unsuccessful attempts to contact the Boeing, the Kuala Lumpur air traffic control announced a distress code. First rescue operation was conducted in the South China Sea, then moved to the Malacca Strait and the Indian Ocean, but was unsuccessful and was completed in April of the same year. In August, the search operation was resumed, but again it was not possible to find traces of the crash. In 2015-2016, aircraft fragments were found off the coast of Reunion. However, the crash site has never been determined, as well as its cause.

June 17, 2014 from radar Another Malaysian Airlines plane has gone missing. The wreckage of the plane was quickly discovered near the Russian-Ukrainian border, but the investigation of the reasons took some time, and the final report was published only in October 2015. But the debate about who is to blame for the tragedy did not stop after the publication of the results of the investigation.

However, in the background earlier incidents, the incident with a Boeing shot down in eastern Ukraine does not look so mysterious.

History knows cases When aircraft they just disappeared without a trace. So, for example, it happened on December 5, 1945, when in the region bermuda triangle five American military planes disappeared at once. They, like the pilots sitting at the helm, were never found.

tragic romance

Passenger planes mysterious tragedy were not bypassed. When on November 8, 1957, the PanAm airliner with the intriguing name "Romance in the Sky" left the California airport for a flight under the seemingly lucky number 7, no one imagined that it would never land at the airport in Hawaiian Honolulu. IN last time the plane made contact after halfway through.

After communication with the liner was lost, a special aircraft was sent to search. Several days of searches in the area of ​​​​the alleged crash did not yield any results. And the bodies of several passengers were discovered only on November 14. Toxicological examination showed a high level of carbon monoxide, which gave reason to believe that the cause of death of passengers was carbon monoxide poisoning, and the cause of the crash was never determined.

Years of falls

The sequence of events that took place 10 years before the crash of the luxury PanAm airliner, marked a very unfortunate period in the history of British South American Airways (BSAA), created by former military pilots. In the late 1940s, BSAA planes went missing almost every year. So, in 1948, making a flight from Lisbon to Bermuda, disappeared over the Atlantic Star liner tiger. The plane landed for refueling at Santa Maria in the Azores, and later, despite strong wind and the rain continued on its way to Bermuda. After 13 hours of flight, communication with Star Tiger was lost. The remains of the plane were never found, and its disappearance added to the treasury of legends about mystical cases in the Bermuda Triangle.

A year later another plane BSAA Star Ariel relegated from Bermuda towards Kingston (Jamaica). The weather conditions were described as excellent, but after an hour of flight, Star Ariel sent his last message and did not get in touch again. Soon, the search that began was unsuccessful, despite the fact that the zone of the alleged fall expanded several times. After 6 days after the disappearance of the liner, they stopped searching, and did not find anything that could indicate a crash.

But the most extraordinary incident happened to a BSAA aircraft in August 1947. Then the Star Dust plane, flying from Buenos Aires to the capital of Chile, as in two other cases, simply disappeared without a trace. The search was also unsuccessful, and a wide range of versions of the disappearance included the intrigues of competitors or foreign intelligence agencies, and even abduction by aliens. No one expected that after 50 years, two Argentine climbers would discover parts of an aircraft engine on Mount Tupungato, 80 km from Santiago. In 2000, other aircraft wreckage and the remains of several passengers were found by the Argentine army.

After a renewed investigation it was determined that, most likely, the cause of the crash was pilot error, which led to a collision with the mountain. As a result, the plane crashed into a wall of snow and ice, which, having fallen on the liner, hid it for the next half century.

Survival Lessons in the Andes

aircraft history, buried under an avalanche of snow, was repeated already in 1972. Then the Uruguayan Air Force Fairchild FH-227D, carrying the Old Cristians rugby team, was also heading to Santiago. On the way to the destination, the aircraft, despite the adverse weather received permission to descend. Later, the air traffic controller's decision would be called a fatal error. While descending, the plane caught the top of the peak with its tail and fell at the foot of the Andes. The authorities of Argentina, Uruguay and Chile immediately launched a search for the missing aircraft. But since the color of the fuselage merged with the snow cover, it was not possible to find the liner. After a week, the search stopped, and in the meantime, the surviving passengers remained on the plane.

Over the next 2 months the undead passengers survived the cold, the lack of food and the avalanche that descended on the crash site of the liner. 3 times the survivors went on a hike to call for help. The third attempt was successful, and 16 passengers were rescued, and the FH-227D crash went down in history as a "miracle in the Andes".

Catastrophe or Collector Attack

In the late 1970s, the world was shocked at least amazing story, unfortunately not having such a happy ending. On January 30, 1979, a Varig Brazilian Boeing 707-323C left Tokyo on a cargo flight and disappeared less than an hour later. The commander got in touch 22 minutes after taking off from Narita airport and said that the flight was proceeding normally. By the next session, the crew did not get in touch. After making several unsuccessful attempts to contact the liner, the air traffic controller gave an alarm.

The search continued for 8 days, but, as with the Star Tiger, there were no signs of a crash, no debris, not even oil stains. It is noteworthy that the plane was carrying paintings by the Brazilian-Japanese artist Manabu Mabe worth $1.2 million. This and the complete lack of information about what happened later gave rise to the version that the plane was attacked by collectors who were hunting for the works of Manabu Mabe. However, the fact that for more than 30 years the paintings have not surfaced in anyone's collections seriously casts doubt on this version. Other assumptions looked even less realistic. For example, it was suggested that the plane, accidentally or under duress, being over Soviet territory, was shot down. Another version also assumed the participation of the USSR in the incident and said that the plane was again shot down by Soviet troops, as it was transporting parts of the MiG-25, which was overtaken by Japan Soviet pilot-defector Viktor Belenko, or codes Soviet system"friend or foe". The fact that the MiG was returned to the USSR back in 1976, obviously, the fans latest version didn't worry too much.

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One of the catastrophes that shocked the whole world was the crash of the Germanwings A320. At the moment, the main version is the assumption that the co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, who suffered from depression, deliberately provoked the fall.

EgyptAir Flight 990

The dead plane 7 years before the crash

On October 31, 1999, a Boeing 767-366ER flew from Los Angeles to Cairo with a stopover in New York. There were 217 people on board, mostly US and Egyptian citizens, including 33 Egyptian officers returning from exercises. The first pilot of the vessel, Ahmed El-Habashi, left the cockpit at 01:50 and went to the restroom. At this time, the co-pilot Gamil El-Batuti turned off both engines - the plane began to dive. He said the phrase "I trust in God" 7 times.

The first pilot returned to the cockpit and asked his partner: “What is this? Have you turned off the engines?”, after which he sat down in a chair and tried to gain altitude, but the co-pilot at the same moment continued to direct the ship down. At 01:52, the plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, 100 km from Nantucket Island. Everyone on board died.

The Egyptian side asked the US National Transportation Safety Administration for help in the investigation. According to the preliminary conclusion, it turned out that the catastrophe was deliberate. The Egyptians insisted on continuing the investigation, as they refused to accept this version.

As a result, the American and Egyptian commissions came to two different conclusions: a deliberate disaster and a technical failure, respectively. The American side insisted that the pilot had suicidal tendencies. However, in this case, the following fact was incomprehensible: the co-pilot flew to the family, having bought gifts for his wife and children.

Conspiracy theorists have put forward the version that it was a terrorist attack aimed at killing 33 members of the Egyptian General Staff who were on board.

star dust

A small British South American Airways (BSAA) Avro Lancastrian transport plane went missing on 2 August 1947. He was heading from Buenos Aires to Santiago. There were 6 passengers and 5 crew members on board. Shortly before the disappearance of the ship, the radio operator transmitted the message: "ETA SANTIAGO 17.45 HRS STENDEC". After that, communication with the aircraft was lost.

Chilean and Argentinean teams were sent to search for the ship, but no wreckage was found. Then the experts put forward several assumptions: the plane could become a victim of sabotage against the BSAA company; there was a bomb on board, blowing up which could destroy diplomatic documents carried by one of the passengers; the ship was hijacked or destroyed by a UFO.

It was possible to find the wreckage only 50 years later: in 1998, two climbers discovered the remains of an aircraft engine on Mount Tupungato, and in 2000, in the same place, the Argentines discovered a propeller, a landing gear wheel and human remains. The victims were identified through DNA analysis.

The version of abduction by aliens has disappeared. Experts suggested that the pilots were unable to determine the location and began to descend, while they had not yet passed the high mountain ranges. As a result, the collision occurred while the aircraft was flying at full speed. However, so far it has not been possible to decipher the second part of the radio operator's message, the experts did not understand what "STENDEC" meant.

Boeing 747 explosion over New York

Collected debris

July 17, 1996 over Atlantic Ocean A Boeing 747?131 operated by Trans World Airlines exploded on a New York-Paris-Rome route. 12 minutes after taking off from Kennedy Airport, the ship exploded. All 230 people on board were killed. First of all, it was suggested that it was a terrorist attack.

The flight took off at about 20:19, and after 11 minutes received an indication of a climb of 15,000 feet, and at 20:31:12 both flight recorders stopped recording. At the same time, the plane disappeared from radar.
At 20:31:50, the Boston control center received a signal from another vessel flying in the area that an explosion had occurred.

According to the pilot, the plane "just fell down into the water." At the same time, similar reports began to arrive from other pilots flying at that time near the crash site. They reported that they saw or heard an explosion, and also observed burning debris falling into the water. About a third of the witnesses noted that they saw a luminous strip approaching the plane from below.

A group of experts immediately went to the crash site. There were no survivors. An operation began to search for the bodies of the victims and the wreckage of the fuselage. It was also possible to find recorders. When deciphering the black box records, the experts heard the phrase: “Look at that frenzied fuel consumption indicator on number 4 ... see that?”

The final report noted that an explosion was the probable cause of the disaster. fuel tank as a result of the ignition of a combustible mixture of fuel and air in the tank. This happened, according to the commission, due to the short circuit of the wires outside the fuel tank. However, not everyone was satisfied with this version. In the last seconds of the recorder recording, a very loud and short sound is heard. In addition, according to the testimony of some witnesses, a luminous beam was rising towards the plane.

As a result, there appeared alternative versions disasters, according to which the aircraft could explode as a result of a bomb on board, or could be shot down by a US Navy missile. Adherents of these theories draw attention to the fact that the FBI, when interviewing witnesses, did not keep audio recordings, instead they made a written report, which these same witnesses were not allowed to look at later.

Missing Malaysian Boeing

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 search diameter

On March 8, 2014, a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777?200ER went missing on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. There were 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board.

At the time of the disappearance, the plane was over South China Sea, And last message from the board was: "Good night, Malaysian three seven zero." A few minutes after that, communication with the aircraft was interrupted, and it disappeared from the radar. Someone turned off the devices transmitting information about the movement of the ship. The crew did not report any problems on board, and up to this point the flight had proceeded normally.

Later, Malaysian military radar spotted the plane in the Strait of Malacca. With the help of technical data, which continued to flow through satellites, experts determined a possible course: one was pointed north, the other south. However, the authorities of Thailand, Vietnam and China reported that the liner did not cross their airspace, and therefore the version of the "northern corridor" was discarded. The south remained, that is, the ship could fly to southern part indian ocean where it probably crashed.

During the investigation, it turned out that other people got on board using the passports of two passengers. The owners of the documents explained that they had lost the documents in Thailand. It turned out that under the names of Italian and Austrian citizens, 18-year-old Iranian Puria Nur Mohammad Merdad and 29-year-old Iranian Seyid Mohammed Raza Delawar were on board.

The search operation deployed over the South China Sea did not produce any results. On March 24, 2014, the Malaysian authorities announced that the Boeing crashed in the southern Indian Ocean, and all on board were killed. However, nothing confirms this version, except for the calculation of the flight path based on satellite data.

According to official version, it was a hijacking. However, at the moment, neither the persons who could have committed such an act, nor their motives have been established.

At the moment, the investigation is ongoing.

Child at the helm

Flight 593 wreckage

On the night of March 22-23, 1994, an Airbus A310-308 of Aeroflot airlines crashed near Mezhdurechensk, flying from Moscow to Hong Kong. There were 75 people on board.

It was established that three and a half hours after takeoff, the crew commander Yaroslav Kudrinskoy let his children into the cockpit - daughter Yana and son Eldar. First, a girl was put in the chair, who did not touch the steering wheel, and then the 15-year-old son of the commander sat in the pilot's seat. The Eldar turned the steering wheel from side to side, and then for about 30 seconds, pressed hard on it. As a result of the boy's actions, the autopilot was partially disabled, and the plane banked to the right. At that time, the co-pilot was in the cockpit, who was filming the children on video, as well as a friend of the Kudrinsky family, Makarov.

The aircraft was banking at 1.5 degrees per second, and after the bank reached 45 degrees, the pilots realized that the autopilot was disabled. Due to the high Gs and bank angle, the crew did not immediately manage to take their seats, at which time the boy, who was still at the helm, followed conflicting commands from his father, the co-pilot and Makarov. The bank reached 90 degrees, after which the aircraft began to lose altitude. The co-pilot brought the craft out of the stall by lowering the bow, but by then the plane was already too low. As a result, he caught on the edges of trees and collapsed in the forest, 20 km from Mezhdurechensk.

Before deciphering the black boxes, there were suggestions that the plane could collide with a certain celestial body or become a victim of a UFO, then there were versions of a terrorist attack and depressurization of the cabin.

The commission could not believe that the plane crashed because of a child at the controls

However, the investigation, which whole year, confirmed that the plane crashed due to the fault of the pilot, who let his son “steer”. After this incident, the experts thought about the role of the co-pilot, who was supposed to control the situation, and not leave the seat.

In aviation, unfortunately, not everything depends on the experience of the crew and the serviceability of the liner. Very often the so-called "human factor" acts as the arbiter of fate. But often, when to determine real reason a plane crash is not possible, everyone simply writes off this “human factor”.

Investigations of air crashes in the pre-reform period were a state secret, which was strictly guarded. For the public, their results remained a secret with seven seals. Today the situation has changed considerably. The Society of Air Accident Investigators (ORAP) has been established in Russia. Every year, its members hold conferences at which the smallest detail of the tragic events is openly discussed, every, even minor manipulation of the pilots, the work of all aircraft systems seconds before the fatal meeting with the ground is analyzed.

But is it less of a disaster? Has it become easier to investigate the disasters themselves?

Despite the most sophisticated methods of researchers and the accumulated experience, there are no less mysteries and mysteries that have not been answered, despite all efforts. There are many examples of this.

So, for example, the version of the death of the Yak-40 aircraft in 1997 in Azerbaijan is the destruction of oxygen cylinders by firearms. We even managed to detain a soldier who fired from a machine gun at that time and in that place.

As was established by the official investigation, round holes with a diameter of 8 mm were found in both cylinders of the aircraft. In addition, with the help of an examination, copper plating was found in the cylinders and on the holes themselves, which confirms the bullet damage due to the fact that the bullet just has a copper sheath. Forensic examination also confirmed the "bullet" version. At first glance, the conclusion is obvious - the culprit of the disaster and the death of people is a soldier who fired in the wrong place and landed in the oxygen tanks of the aircraft. But when examining the hole on an electron microscope, it turned out that the “bullet” not only entered, but also exited through it, which in itself is unlikely. In addition, they did not find an outlet, allegedly for the reason that during the fall the tank was destroyed on the side where the outlet should be. The bullet itself was also not found.

This mystery has not yet been solved, but one thing is certain - the soldier is not to blame. And this is far from the only case.

So, in the same 1997, the American Boeing-747 was supposed to fly from Odessa to the Greek Thessaloniki, but it was found to have a malfunction. Therefore, the Yak-42 was called from Lvov. It was he who set off at night along the route that became the last for him and the passengers. It was led by the most experienced pilot Starodubtsev, besides, there was a very experienced pilot-instructor on board.

We flew safely to Thessaloniki. It was found that the aircraft at an altitude of 250 meters crossed runway. And then something completely incomprehensible happened - the plane suddenly began to move away from the airport. The crew was instructed to turn right to the airport radio beacon, gaining altitude up to 1800 meters. The crew responded to requests from the ground that the aircraft was performing a maneuver and was located where the dispatchers indicated to it in order to make a go-around approach. However, in reality, this was absolutely not the case - in fact, he was flying away from the airfield, towards his death. The tragedy occurred at a distance of 70 kilometers above the mountains. All crew members and passengers were killed. Not only Russians, but also specialists from Greece and Ukraine took part in the investigation of this plane crash. "Black boxes" were deciphered both in Russia and in Germany. But, despite this, it has not yet been possible to give a clear answer to the question of why the aircraft made this maneuver.

Until now, the mystery of the Irkutsk tragedy has not been solved either. On December 6, 1997, an An-124 military transport aircraft fell on a residential area during takeoff. Within a few seconds after the aircraft took off from the runway, the third and first engines were turned off, after which the second engine also failed. The crew made an attempt to keep the plane on one remaining engine, but it was unsuccessful. The disaster claimed the lives of 72 people - fifteen crew members, eight passengers and dozens of people from two destroyed houses. In this terrible tragedy unsolved mysteries, complex and controversial riddles. Attempts to find out the cause of the engine failure were unsuccessful. Both flight recorders were badly damaged. The reasons for their exclusion, both experimentally and by means of objective control, have not been finally established.

Why do engines fail? The reason for the failure of aircraft technology is often called inexplicable to science phenomena, anomalous phenomena. strange natural phenomena often provoke plane crashes, and sometimes planes even disappear without a trace. It is impossible to say unequivocally whether there is some truth in such assumptions or whether it is all false. Of course, most accidents occur just because of design flaws, an unreliable security system and other nuances that at first seem not so important, but in the end cost the lives of hundreds of people. However, one cannot rule out a certain mysticism, and a supernatural factor, on which many continue to insist. We cannot yet prove or disprove the involvement of certain supernatural forces in the death aircraft. If such reasons as weather conditions, hostilities, mistakes of pilots or dispatchers are quite understandable and explainable, then the unexpected failure of the on-board computer is perhaps the most terrible. According to skeptics, all phenomena can be found scientific justification. Only, apparently, scientists are not yet able to do it.

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