“Modern airliners…don’t have accidents.” David Learmount “Aircraft Expert” on the BBC, after Air France plane skidded off a runway and burst into flames at Toronto’s Pearson airport in August 2005, but all 309 people aboard survived.
Check out the crash tally for commercial aircraft following that remark…
- Aug. 6: A Tunisian ATR-42 plane crashes into the sea off Palermo in Sicily, Italy, killing 13 of the 39 passengers and crew members on board, with three others missing.
- Aug. 14: A Cypriot Boeing 737 operated by the private Helios Airways crashes in north Athens, killing all the 121 passengers and crew members on board.
- Aug. 17: A jet carrying French tourists crashes in the mountains of western Venezuela, killing all the 160 people on board.
- Aug. 24: A Peruvian Boeing 737-200 crashes in the Amazon jungle, killing at least 48 of the 100 people aboard.
- Sept. 5: An Indonesian Boeing 737-200 with 117 on board crashes into a residential area in the city of Medan, Indonesia’s third-largest city, killing more than 130 people aboard and on the ground.
- Oct. 22: A Boeing 737-200 operated by Nigeria’s Bellview Airlines crashes on the outskirts of Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, killing 117 people on board.
- Dec. 10: A plane with 103 passengers and seven crew members on board crashed in the southern Nigerian oil city of Port Harcourt, killing 103 people.
- Dec 20: A seaplane crash kills 20 off Miami, Florida.
- Dec 24: All 23 passengers and crew died when an Azerbaijan Airlines plane crashed shortly after taking off from the capital, Baku.
I am actually being completely unfair. Mr Learmont is talking about the latest generation of aircraft like the A340 that crashed in Toronto. I could not resist the slight scoff though.
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