Airplanes are the safest means of travel in the world. Although airplane accidents are rare, safety can be improved by learning from each accident. Many of today’s security measures in air travel are due to accidents. We know about such accidents that have changed the course of air travel.
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Air Traffic Control
On June 30, 1956, two planes flew over the Grand Canyon. It was a United Airlines Douglas DC7 and a Transworld Airlines Lockheed L1049 that took off from Los Angeles Airport. Both of them collided and 128 passengers were killed. This incident led to a reform of the air traffic control system itself. It cost 250 million dollars back then. This collision also led to the creation of the Federal Aviation Agency in 1958 to ensure air safety.
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Dictatorship in the cockpit
On December 28, 1978, United Flight 173 circled the Portland, Oregon airport with 181 passengers on board for more than an hour. The reason is that it cannot land due to a problem with the landing gear. The captain ignored the warning that the plane was low on fuel. The plane then ran out of fuel and crashed, killing ten people. The authority system of ‘Captain is God’, which was there till then, has changed. United Airlines has introduced changes in its cockpit training.
Smoke sensor
Smoke started coming from Air Canada’s DC 9 plane when it was flying at an altitude of 33,000 feet. On June 2, 1983, the journey was from Dallas to Toronto. A small amount of smoke rose from the rear lavatory and soon filled the plane. Due to this, the plane had to be landed urgently. Before everyone could be evacuated, the plane caught fire and 23 of the 46 people on board were killed. This is why the Federal Aviation Agency mandated smoke sensors and automatic fire extinguishing systems. Aircraft manufactured after 1988 use non-flammable materials in the interior.
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Engine safety
On July 19, 1989, United Airlines Flight 232, en route from Denver to Chicago, experienced engine failure. The plane lost control and 296 lives were lost. The captain made an emergency landing. The plane caught fire on the runway, but 185 lives were saved. A subsequent investigation revealed that the accident was caused by a mistake by a mechanic who was checking the efficiency of the engine. With this, the way of checking the engines of the aircraft before the journey has changed.
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Life of aircraft parts
On April 28, 1988, a relatively strange plane crash occurred. The roof of the plane, which was flying from Hawaii to Honolulu at an altitude of 24,000 feet, disintegrated. This Boeing 737 was 19 years old. All the passengers of the plane experienced strong wind and cold. The plane made an emergency landing. One of the flight attendants fell out of the plane and was killed. All the rest reached earth alive. After this, the FAA started the National Aging Aircraft Research Program in 1911. It also made it mandatory to check the age of aircraft parts.
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Cargo parts of passenger aircraft
After the 1983 Air Canada crash, fire safety systems were mandated on passenger planes. But there was little security in the cargo areas of passenger planes. Another accident had to happen to make this happen. On May 11, 1996, ValueJet 596 crashed near Miami. The company in charge of the airline’s maintenance illegally loaded chemical oxygen generators. When it caught fire, all 110 lives on board were lost. Due to this, it was forced to bring fire extinguishing systems in the cargo areas of the passenger planes as well.
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Real-time flight tracking
The mystery surrounding the Malaysian Airlines flight that disappeared on March 8, 2014 is still not over. Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which flew from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, disappeared without giving any particular distress message. All 239 people on board were killed.
The disappearance of the Malaysian airliner remains one of the greatest mysteries in aviation history. It is still unclear whether the pilots deliberately crashed the plane into the sea, or whether passengers hijacked the plane or if something else went wrong. Anyway, after the incident of the missing Malaysian plane, the real-time tracking system of the planes came into existence. The International Civil Aviation Organization itself has given instructions to the airlines in this regard.
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2023-11-07 10:02:30
