Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571
One of the most amazing stories involving a plane crash was back in October 13, 1972. Flight 571 crashed in the Andes Mountains while going from Uruguay to Chile. Because of poor viewing conditions, the wings of the plane were clipped by the mountains and crashed in an unknown location. The plane was white, so search and rescue efforts from the sky were almost impossible despite the survivors’ attempt to become noticeable.
After 11 days, search and rescue stopped and presumed all 45 passengers and crew died. As the survivors heard this, two of those passengers had a 10-day journey to report what really happened. After 72 days, 16 people were finally rescued from the mountains. Not everyone died in the crash, but avalanches and injuries among other problems caused more deaths afterwards.
Egypt Air Flight 990
Contrasting investigations from the US and Egypt make this one of the most interesting cases back on October 31st, 1999. All 217 passengers and crew died in a crash into the Atlantic Ocean heading from Los Angeles, California, to Cairo, Egypt. Because the accident happened in Egyptian territory, their government initially led a search and rescue but lacked enough resources to carry it forward. Eventually, it signed off the responsibility to the US.
When the National Transportation Safety Board considered it a criminal event, the Egyptian government grew unhappy with how the investigation was being conducted and launched their own investigation. They believed it was due to mechanical failure, but the NTSB believes if that was the case, it was recoverable. The NTSB investigation concluded two years after the incident that probable cause was from the first officer’s controls and the reason for action is unknown. The flight voice recorder has evidence that the officer may have shut off the engines, and the officer repeated “I rely on God” during the incident.
Pan Am Flight 7
Also known as the “Clipper Romance of the Skies”, Flight 7 went around the world from San Francisco, California, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The crash could have been the resulting of a malfunctioning engine when heading to its first stop in Hawaii, but the results are ultimately curious if this was a planned attack.
Wreckage was found well off from the route the plane was taking, and toxicology reports from the 44 crew and passengers that died had high levels of carbon monoxide. There is no cause after the accident back on November 9th, 1957, but an interesting probable motive was an explosive device that was on the aircraft because of insurance fraud.
Air France Flight 447
Search and rescue was the toughest part in trying to solve the mystery of Flight 447’s disappearance over the Atlantic Ocean back on June 1st, 2009. Wreckage was found days after the incident, but probable cause couldn’t properly be determined until they found the black box around two years later. 74 of the 228 bodies remain in the water after the search was finally called off.
Flight 447 was going from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. Probable cause was a disconnect from autopilot due to ice crystals in the pitot tubes. With an aerodynamic stall, the crew couldn’t recover and eventually it led to the plane falling into the ocean.
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