An aviation accident is an event during aircraft operation that causes serious injury, death, or destruction. An aviation incident is any operating event that compromises safety but does not progress to an aviation accident. Preventing accidents and incidents is the main goal of aviation safety.
Turkish Airlines Flight 981 (TK981/THY981) was a scheduled flight from Istanbul Yeşilköy Airport to London Heathrow Airport, with an intermediate stop at Orly Airport in Paris. On 3 March 1974, the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 operating the flight crashed into the Ermenonville Forest, 37.76 kilometres (23.46 mi) outside Paris, killing all 335 passengers and 11 crew on board. It was the first aviation accident to exceed 200 and 300 fatalities. The crash was also known as the Ermenonville air disaster.
The Kegworth air disaster occurred when British Midland Airways Flight 092, a Boeing 737-400, crashed onto the motorway embankment between the M1 motorway and A453 road near Kegworth, Leicestershire, England, while attempting to make an emergency landing at East Midlands Airport on 8 January 1989.
Aviation safety is the study and practice of managing risks in aviation. This includes preventing aviation accidents and incidents through research, educating air travel personnel, passengers and the general public, as well as the design of aircraft and aviation infrastructure. The aviation industry is subject to significant regulation and oversight.
To assume a brace position or crash position is an instruction that can be given to prepare for a crash, such as on an aircraft; the instruction to "Brace for impact!" or "Brace! Brace!" is often given if the aircraft must make an emergency landing on land or water. There are many different ways to adopt the brace position, with many countries adopting their own version based on research performed by their own aviation authority or that of other countries. The most common in passenger airliners being the forward-facing seat version, in which the person bracing places their head against or as close as possible to the surface it is likely to strike, placing their feet firmly on the floor, and their hands either on their head or the seat in front.
An uncontrolled decompression is an undesired drop in the pressure of a sealed system, such as a pressurised aircraft cabin or hyperbaric chamber, that typically results from human error, structural failure, or impact, causing the pressurised vessel to vent into its surroundings or fail to pressurize at all.
The Controlled Impact Demonstration was a joint project between NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that intentionally crashed a remotely controlled Boeing 720 aircraft to acquire data and test new technologies to aid passenger and crew survival. The crash required more than four years of preparation by NASA Ames Research Center, Langley Research Center, Dryden Flight Research Center, the FAA, and General Electric. After numerous test runs, the plane was crashed on December 1, 1984. The test went generally according to plan, and produced a large fireball that required more than an hour to extinguish.
USAir Flight 405 was a regularly scheduled domestic passenger flight between LaGuardia Airport in Queens, New York City, New York, and Cleveland, Ohio. On March 22, 1992, a USAir Fokker F28, registration N485US, flying the route, crashed in poor weather in a partially inverted position in Flushing Bay, shortly after liftoff from LaGuardia. The undercarriage lifted off from the runway, but the airplane failed to gain lift, flying only several meters above the ground. The aircraft then veered off the runway and hit several obstructions before coming to rest in Flushing Bay, just beyond the end of the runway. Of the 51 people on board, 27 were killed, including the captain and a member of the cabin crew.
A pre-flight safety briefing is a detailed explanation given before take-off to airline passengers about the safety features of the aircraft they are aboard.
The Cranfield Institute for Safety, Risk, and Reliability, commonly referred as The Cranfield Institute, is a part of Cranfield University in Cranfield, Bedfordshire, England, UK. It is primarily a teaching and research facility, but also offers safety-related consultancy to businesses.
A runway incursion is an aviation incident involving improper positioning of vehicles or people on any airport runway or its protected area. When an incursion involves an active runway being used by arriving or departing aircraft, the potential for a collision hazard or instrument landing system (ILS) interference can exist. At present, various runway safety technologies and processes are commonly employed to reduce the risk and potential consequences of such an event.
Destin Executive Airport, also known as Coleman Kelly Field, is a public use airport owned by and located in Okaloosa County, Florida. The airport is one nautical mile (2 km) east of the central business district of Destin, Florida. It is included in the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2021–2025, which categorized it as a general aviation facility.
Aerotoxic syndrome relates to ill-health effects associated with breathing contaminated air in an airliner cabin. Researchers have associated aerotoxic syndrome with exposure to substances such as engine oil and hydraulic fluid. Although researchers have identified correlations between the aircraft occupational environment and symptoms of aerotoxic syndrome, this condition is not an established medical diagnosis because the incidence and aetiology of the condition are still under debate.
On 8 March 1962, a Fairchild F-27 of Turkish Airlines registered as TC-KOP, crashed into Mount Medetsiz while en route from Ankara Esenboğa Airport (ESB/LTAC) to Adana Airport (ADA/LTAF), killing all eight passengers and three crew members on board. The aircraft was descending into Adana when it encountered cumulus clouds, leading the pilots to fly around them and change their altitude accordingly. It is believed that the pilots lost track of their location and altitude while doing so, causing the plane to crash into the bottom of an abyss at the mountain. The location of the wreckage and harsh weather conditions meant that the rescue team was not able to reach the accident site until 11 March, while local villagers managed to reach it a day prior.
A fume event occurs when bleed air used for cabin pressurisation and air conditioning in a pressurised aircraft is contaminated by fluids such as engine oil, hydraulic fluid, anti-icing fluid, and other potentially hazardous chemicals.
Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center is a regional office of the United States Federal Aviation Administration on the grounds of Will Rogers Airport in Oklahoma City. With around 7,500 direct federal employees, the Aeronautical Center is one of the Department of Transportation's largest facilities outside the Washington, DC area, and one of the 10 largest employers in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. It is named for Senator Mike Monroney of Oklahoma, who wrote and sponsored the Federal Aviation Act of 1958.
Civil Aerospace Medical Institute (CAMI) is the medical certification, education, research, and occupational medicine wing of the Office of Aerospace Medicine (AAM) under the auspices of the Federal Aviation Administration Office of Aviation Safety. The Institute's primary goal is to enhance aviation safety.
On March 11, 2018, a sightseeing helicopter crashed into the East River off the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City, killing five people. Two passengers died at the scene, and three others were pronounced dead at the hospital. The pilot escaped the helicopter following the crash. The aircraft was operated by Liberty Helicopters for FlyNyon.
Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 was a Boeing 737-700 that experienced a contained engine failure in the left CFM International CFM56 engine after departing from New York–LaGuardia Airport en route to Dallas Love Field on April 17, 2018. The engine cowl was broken in the failure, and cowl fragments damaged the fuselage, shattering a cabin window and causing explosive depressurization of the aircraft. Other fragments caused damage to the wing. The crew carried out an emergency descent and diverted to Philadelphia International Airport. One passenger was partially ejected from the aircraft and sustained fatal injuries, while eight other passengers sustained minor injuries. The aircraft was substantially damaged.
Christopher Lewis Colton is an English orthopaedic surgeon and Professor Emeritus in Orthopaedic and Accident Surgery at the University of Nottingham. He is a past president of both the British Orthopaedic Association and of the AO Foundation.
