Flight Phobia? 10 Passenger Flight Incidents When This Fear Turned Real

Do you know what Bob Marley's last words were? When he was on the verge of life and death he said, "Money can't buy life." You can always trust a dying man's words. Seeing the same correlation here, a nominee may get the money of an insured flight if anything goes wrong but that is not what that person wants. That nominee wants that person back. So here is the twisted essence of this article. Spend your time wisely with your friends and family because shit happens. Get more clarity on your goals and live a better life because time is limited. Here are such incidents depicting heroism, survival, luck, misfortune, and determination -- everything that is of the core value in life. 1. Andes Plane Crash - Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 Date: 13 October 1972 – 23 December 1972 Site: The Andes, Mountain range in South America Fatalities: 29 Survivors: 16 Summary: Pilot error, 72-day survival The stranded survivors in The Andes ©Travel Style What could be worse than eating the bodies of your own friends and relatives? Nothing, right? The 16 survivors of the infamous Andes plane crash had to go through exactly that when they were stuck in the middle of the unforgiving mountain range in South America for 72 days, without any aid. Taking the clock back to early spring (Southern Hemisphere) on 13 October 1972, a chartered flight carrying 45 people, including a rugby union team, their friends, family, and associates, crashed in the remote Andes (Mountain Range of South America). Reason? A miscalculation in coordinates by the Pilot. Here is a movie on that. Do watch. 2. Operation Entebbe - Air France Flight 139 Date: 4 July 1976 Site: Entebbe Airport, Uganda(landlocked country in East Africa) Fatalities: 4 Survivors: 256 Summary: Hijacked, successful counter-terrorism hostage-rescue mission ‘We Were Not Going To Leave The Jewish Passengers In Entebbe' an Air France pilot Recounting the memories of the incident. The hijackers offered to free him, he insisted on staying with his Israeli and Jewish passengers to the end. He is 93 today, the Captain Michel Bacos who flew the Air France plane that was hijacked to Entebbe. ©Jewish Business News An Air France plane with 248 passengers and 12 crew members got hijacked by two members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and two members of the German Revolutionary Cells. Hijackers' objective? They wished to free 40 Palestinian and affiliated militants imprisoned in Israel and 13 prisoners in four other countries in exchange for the hostages. The flight had originated in Tel Aviv (Israel) with the destination of Paris. It was diverted after a stopover in Athens (Greece) via Benghazi (Libya) to Entebbe (the main airport of Uganda). The Ugandan government supported the hijackers. Their dictator Idi Amin personally welcomed them. What did the hostage country do to rescue their countrymen? Within a week a counter-terrorism hostage-rescue mission was carried out by commandos of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) at Entebbe Airport. Long story short, the Israeli commandos did it in style. They painted their car like the one Amin used and fooled the hijacker at many occasions in many cunning ways. To know more. Watch this. 3. Brazilian airline - Varig Flight 820 Date: 11 July 1973 Site: Near Orly, France Fatalities: 123 Survivors: 11 Summary: In-flight fire, leading to loss of controls and belly landing Plane landed on onion plantation ©Alchetron In the year 1973, 123 passengers were killed on a plane traveling from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. The reason for the accident? The pilot had to make an emergency landing on an onion plantation about four kilometers from Orly Airport after the cabin was found filled with smoke. The suspected cause? A cigarette that might have been thrown into a lavatory waste bin eventually caught fire. This was one of the major incidents causing the result we still see an ashtray in airplanes along with no smoking signs. Isn't it strange? Read the complete story here to know the reason. 4. D.B. Copper the man who hijacked a Boeing 727 and parachuted - Northwest Airlines Flight 305 Date: November 24, 1971 Site: Between Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington, USA Fatalities: None (hijacker's fate unknown) Survivors: All 42 passengers and crew Summary: Hijacking, hijacker jumped with a Parachute and was never found D.B. Cooper's suspected sketch ©getkempt.com In 1971, an unidentified man traveling under the name of “Dan Cooper” managed to hijack a Boeing 727. It was traveling from Oregon(US) to Washington(US). Objective? To extort a $200,000 ransom. The strangest part was yet to occur. He leaped from the rear exit on the aircraft with a parachute, and then was never seen again. Police never caught him. In other words, it is still one of those deep mysteries which only Sherlock can solve. Some suspect that he died after ejecting from the airplane while others think he is still free, sipping cold drinks south of the border. 5. Air India Flight 182 Date: 23 June 1985 Site: The Atlantic Ocean, southwest of Ireland Fatalities: 329 Survivors: 0 Summary: Aviation bombing Relatives of the crash victims pay tribute to the dead at the Ireland's southernmost point. ©Gravity of Life The Air India Boeing 747 crashed off the coast of Ireland. It was on the route from Toronto to Sahar International in India. The plane exploded over the Atlantic after a bomb placed in the cargo hold by the Sikh extremists Babbar Khalsa. The day marked as the deadliest terror attack involving a plane at the time. A total of 329 people were killed, including 268 Canadian citizens, 27 British citizens, and 24 Indian citizens. A second bomb was intended to go off in on another flight but exploded early in the terminal building at Narita Airport, Japan. An investigation into this found numerous failings in the security processes in Canada that allowed the terrorist attack to be successful. 6. Colombia plane crash - LaMia Flight 2933 Date: 28 November 2016 Site: Cerro Gordo, La Unión, Antioquia, Colombia, South America Fatalities: 71 Survivors: 6 Summary: Fuel exhaustion due to deficient flight planning First division Chapecoense soccer team from Southern Brazil ©Twitter It is one of the most recent ones on the list. The plane eventually crashed in Colombia had 77 people on board including a first division football team from Brazil. The crash is suspected to be a result of fuel shortage or maybe thunderstorms. Sadly those lads, who were on the way to becoming a force in football, took the wrong plane." - - Diego Maradona. 7. Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision - Saudia Flight 763 and Kazakhstan Airlines Flight 1907 Date: 12 November 1996 Site: Charkhi Dadri, Haryana, India Fatalities: 349 Survivors: 0 Summary: Mid-air collision caused by pilot error on Kazakhstan Airlines aircraft After crash spot scene ©NanoPress It is considered as one of the world's deadliest mid-air crash to ever occur in the history of the aviation industry. The accident took over the city of Charkhi Dadri in northern India killing 312 people on board the flight 762 and 37 on the other one. The Boeing 747 was heading for Dhahran from Delhi while the Kazakhstan Airlines Ilyushin II-76 was bound for Indira airport from Shymkent. The tail of the Kazakhstan plane cut through the Saudia wing and that is how it ended. 8. Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Date: March 8, 2014 Site: Southern Indian Ocean (presumed) Fatalities: 239 Survivors: 0 Summary: Cause unknown. Search called off since 17 January 2017. Some debris found. The scheduled route of the flight ©Fox 13 According to some conspiracy theorists speculations, it was shot down, or it was hijacked, or it was switched, or it landed on an island, or it was destroyed by a mysterious new weapon, or last but not the least Russia hijacked the plane. No one knows the reality as of now as the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 just vanished in March 2014. It was flying from Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Malaysia, to its destination, Beijing Capital International Airport in China. 9. Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Date: 17 July 2014 Site: Near Hrabove, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine Fatalities: 298 Survivors: 0 Summary: Airliner shootdown The crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 near the settlement of Grabovo, Ukraine. ©Maxim Zmeyev/Reuters A passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down on 17 July 2014, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board. Place of the accident: flying over eastern Ukraine(Russian Border). Both the times it was a Malaysian airline that suffered in the same year. Who was responsible? Still unanswered. 10. Egyptair Flight 990 Date: October 31, 1999 Site: The Atlantic Ocean, 100 km (62 mi) S of Nantucket Fatalities: 217 Survivors: 0 Summary: Deliberate crash; suicide by co-pilot (NTSB) Mechanical failure (ECAA) The photo of the pilot ©Newsweek In 1999 Boeing 767 carrying 217 passengers and crew departed from Los Angeles for Cairo(Egypt) but crashed into the Atlantic Ocean around 60 miles off the US coast. The Egyptian Civil Aviation Authority(ECAA) stated that it was a mechanical failure, but the United States National Transportation and Safety Board(NTSB) suggested that the pilot committed suicide. The pilot's last recorded words were "I rely on God"(repeatedly saying) moments before the disaster. One of his senior colleagues claimed that he crashed the jet as an act of revenge after being reprimanded by the airline for sexual misconduct. Later an investigation concluded he did not deliberately cause the accident. Still a mystery!