 |
| The Beijing-bound Boeing 777-200 Flight MH370 of Malaysia Airlines had 227 passengers aboard. (AP Photo) |
The “unprecedented mystery” of a missing
Malaysian plane has deepened with no trace of wreckage found even after three days of multinational search operations.
The Beijing-bound
Boeing 777-200 Flight MH370 of
Malaysia Airlines had 227 passengers aboard, including five Indians and one Indian-origin Canadian, and 12 crew members.
Here is a look at some of the world’s deadliest air disasters in recent years:
February 16, 2014 | Nepal: All 18 people aboard a
small passenger plane that crashed into a snow covered mountain bad
weather in Nepal were killed. The plane carrying 15 passengers and crew
of three was en route from Pokhara to Jamia. The crash highlighted the
poor safety record of Nepal, where more than a dozen airlines fly to
nearly 50 airports, many in remote hills and mountains shrouded in cloud
and cut off from roads.
February 11, 2014 | Algeria: A military transport
plane carrying members of the Algerian armed forces and their relatives
crashed into a mountain, killing 77 people, the worst air disaster in
the North African country in a decade. State television showed footage
of the wreckage of the plane near the village of Ouled Gacem in eastern
Algeria, smoke rising from the site and emergency crews scouring the
forested area for survivors and bodies.
November 17, 2013 | Russia: Tatarstan Airlines
Boeing 737 went into a nearly vertical dive and crashed onto the runway
on landing in Kazan, Russia, killing all 50 people on board. The Boeing
737 belonging to Tatarstan Airlines was making its second attempt at a
landing in Kazan, 720 kilometers (520 miles) east of MoscowThe jet hit
the runway and burst into flames. All 44 passengers and crew of 6 were
killed.
November 13, 2013 | Namibia: A Mozambique Airlines
plane en route to Angola crashed in a game park in northeast Namibia,
killing all 33 people on board. Flight TM 470 left Maputo for the
Angolan capital Luanda with 27 passengers and six crew when it lost
contact with air traffic controllers.
October 16, 2013 | Laos: A Lao Airlines plane flying
in stormy weather crashed into the Mekong river in southern Laos,
killing all 44. The virtually new ATR-72 turboprop plane flying from the
capital Vientiane crashed just eight kilometers (five miles) short of
its destination Pakse and sank into the river. The weather was poor at
the time of the accident.
Lagos: A Dana passenger plane
crashed into a densely populated part of Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial
hub, killing all 147 people on board. The McDonnell Douglas MD-83,
operated by privately owned domestic carrier Dana Air, was coming into land on a flight from the capital Abuja when it hit
the building, not far from Lagos’s Murtala Muhammed Airport and burst
into flames.
May 14, 2012 | Nepal: A Dornier plane owned by a
private company crashed in northwest Nepal, killing 15 people including
13 Indians. The aircraft was carrying 18 passengers and a crew of three
on a flight from the resort town of Pokhara to Jomsom when it crashed
while landing at the mountain airstrip.
April 20, 2012 | Pakistan: A Pakistani airliner on
an Airblue domestic flight from Karachi with 127 people on board crashed
in bad weather as it came in to land in Islamabad, leaving no sign of
survivors. The Boeing 737, operated by local airline Bhoja Air, was
flying to the capital from Pakistan’s biggest city and business hub
Karachi. It crashed into wheat fields more than 5 miles from the
airport.
July 26, 2011 | Morocco: At least 78 people were
killed hen a Moroccan military transport plane crashed into a mountain
in the south of the country during bad weather. There were three injured
survivors so far from the crash, which happened when a Hercules C-130
aircraft was trying to land in Guelmim, having flown north from the
disputed Western Sahara territory.
July 08, 2011 | Congo: An airliner ploughed into
dense forest as it tried to land during a rainstorm in the Democratic
Republic of Congo on Friday, killing 127 people on board. There were 51
survivors.
November 05, 2010 | Cuba: A state airliner filled
with Cubans and travelers from Europe and Latin America crashed and
burst into flames in a mountainous area, killing all 68 people on board.
AeroCaribbean Flight 883 was en route from the eastern city of Santiago
de Cuba went down near the village of Guasimal in Santi Spiritus
province, carrying 61 passengers and a crew of seven.
July 28, 2010 | Pakistan: In the worst aviation
accident in the country, a Pakistani passenger plane crashed in heavy
rain near Islamabad, killing all 152 people on board. The Airbus 321,
belonging to a private airline crashed into a heavily wooded and
hard-to-access hillside while flying from the southern port city of
Karachi.
May 22, 2010 | India: In the country’s worst air
disaster in a decade, an Air India Express Boeing 737 plane overshot the
airport runway in Mangalore and burst into flames early this morning
killing 158 persons but eight others survived. The aircraft, carrying
160 passengers and a crew of six, hit a concrete localiser instrument, a
navigation aid, and fell into a ravine 200 to 300 metres deep. The
passengers included four infants and 19 other children.
April 10, 2010 | Russia: The plane of Polish President Lech Kaczynski crashed outside the western Russian city of Smolensk, killing all 96 aboard.