United Airlines Flight 585
Similar to Flight 427, Flight 585 was the probable result of a malfunctioned rudder power control unit. The crash was shocking due to the history of the flight crew. Captain Harold Green and First Officer Patricia Eidson had close to 14,000 flight hours combined and were some of the highest-regarded pilots that always followed procedure. All 25 crew and passengers died in the March 3rd, 1991 accident.
The initial investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board, which concluded 21 months after the crash, couldn’t determine the cause, that is until the investigation was reopened after the Flight 427 incident a few years later. The plane was headed from Denver, Colorado, to Colorado Springs. Approaching the runway, the plane took a nosedive to the right and crashed into Widefield Park at a reported 245 miles per hour.
Amelia Earhart
All the way back on July 2nd, 1937, Earhart had the intention of becoming the first woman to fly around the world. Along with Captain Fred Noonan, the two mysteriously disappeared over the Pacific Ocean while close to Howland Island in a Lockheed Electra 10E. Her last radio calls were on low fuel and she was unsure of her whereabouts, but felt like they arrived at the island. In actuality, she was approximately five nautical miles to the west.
Within an hour of her last broadcast, a search effort was ultimately unsuccessful in finding zero wreckage, debris, or Earhart and Noonan. She was declared dead two years later, but there is a large amount of conspiracy theories on the event. The most accepted is crashing in the water in a completely different area than she thought. Another is crashing over two hours away at Gardner Island.
Flying Tiger Line Flight 739
The disappearance of Flight 739 back on March 16th, 1962, still remains a puzzle and is the worst aviation accident in the Lockheed Constellation series. There was no reported accident involving the flight, but there’s belief that the plane was involved in an in-flight explosion from a potential witness of a civilian tanker. No wreckage, debris, or bodies were ever found from search and rescue efforts of the US military.
Without wreckage, there was no way to determine probable cause of the accident. The explosion remains the best cause, but there is a conspiracy theory. The L-1049 Super Constellation, which took off from the Travis Air Force Base on the same day, crashed in the Aleutian Islands. Sabotage could have been in play.
Comair Flight 5191 (or Flight 191)
Pilot error could have been the cause of a strange crash that involved a mix-up of runways back on August 27th, 2006. At Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Kentucky, 49 of the 50 passengers and crew died while taking off from the airport. Instead of using runway 22 as expected, they used runway 26 which had too short of a path for a safe takeoff. Captain Jeffrey Clay confirmed using runway 22 but took a left too early according to the map.
First Officer James Polehinke was the only survivor after suffering broken bones, one collapsed lung, and severe bleeding. While ultimate blame was put on the captain because he didn’t abort liftoff despite questioning his surroundings, the airport was found to be using outdated maps and had needed to improve runway markings and conditions.
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