Sunday Times 2
Flight MH370: 5 other mysterious disasters
View(s):The disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines flight is increasingly baffling, but it is not the first plane to vanish without trace or have its investigation surrounded by confusion and chaos.
From adventurer Steve Fossett’s disappearance over the Nevada desert to the claims of a revenge killing behind the crash of EgyptAir Flight 990, here are 10 of the most mysterious aviation disasters.
Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart with her Lockheed Electra before her ill-fated quest to fly around the world (Reuters)
Surely the most famous plane disappearance of all time belongs to female flying ace Amelia Earhart, whose aircraft disappeared in 1937, during an attempt to circumnavigate the globe. She was flying with her navigator Captain Fred Noonan over the Pacific at the time. After a major search effort failed to find any trace of her or her twin-engine plane, she was declared dead two years later. It has not stopped people looking for her though.
Air France Flight 447
When Air France flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris went down in 2009, it was five days before any wreckage was spotted and nearly two years before its “black boxes” were found – at a depth of around 4,000m (13,000ft). None of the 228 people on board the Airbus 330 survived. French investigators found that the autopilot disconnected, probably after air speed instruments were frozen by ice crystals, and then the pilots steered the plane at too steep an angle to maintain speed – eventually stalling it – despite a warning sounding in the cockpit for nearly a minute. Air France rejected those accusations.
Bermuda Triangle
Scores of ships and planes are said to have vanished without trace over the decades in this vast triangular area of ocean that has imaginary points in Bermuda, Florida and Puerto Rico. Two British South American Airways planes disappeared in the region in the 1940s, but research by a BBC journalist in 2009 found that one probably suffered a catastrophic technical failure while the other is likely to have run out of fuel. The myth of the Bermuda Triangle, however, lives on.
Devil's Triangle: Scores of ships and planes are said to have vanished without trace over the decades in this vast triangular area of ocean
Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571
Another plane that fell victim to low cloud and high mountains in the days before cockpit technology was able to better inform pilots. Flight 571 was flying from Uruguay to Santiago, Chile, and came down in the Andes, losing both wings as it
After several false leads, blamed on "sea trash", wreckage of Flight 447 was finally found after five days (AFP)
clipped the top of mountains. Of the 45 people on board the flight, around half survived not only the impact but also a further 72 days stranded on the mountain. Eventually, rescuers reached 16 survivors who admitted they had resorted to cannibalism to stay alive. The survivors’ story was told on the big screen in the 1993 film Alive.
Private plane carrying fashion boss
A small aircraft carrying the director of Italian fashion house Missoni disappeared off the coast of Venezuela in January 2013. Vittorio Missoni and his wife were among six people on board the flight from the archipelago of Los Roques towards Caracas when it rapidly lost altitude and speed before vanishing from radar. The plane wasn’t found until six months after the crash and divers eventually recovered the six bodies, with samples confirming that Mr Missoni and his wife were among them. It was the second time a plane had disappeared in Los Roques and the area has now been dubbed the “new Bermuda Triangle.”
(Courtesy BBC)