In light of the recent crash of Germanwings flight 9525 on Tuesday, March 24th 2015, the world has been abuzz with talks of plane crashes and just how many of them are caused by pilots. While the co-pilot of flight 9525, Andreas Lubitz, has been accused of intentionally crashing the Airbus A320-200 into the French Alps due to severe depression and suicidal tendencies, there’s been several other aviation disasters in recent history that can be attributed to 0ne small error made in the cockpit. Often, these mistakes are completely preventable and are made unintentionally during a brief oversight or lapse in judgement.
While each of the crashes has been devastating, many of them have become textbook examples for training pilots on what not to do in the air in order to prevent catastrophes of the same nature. As such, the world has seen an impressive increase in aviation safety in the past twenty years and is only continuing to improve in the domain. While 75% of plane crashes are caused by pilot error, rarely have the same mistakes been made more than twice. Below, we highlight instances of engine failure, autopilot disengage, faulty landing gear, speed sensor misreads, radio miscommunication, fuel exhaustion and lost altitude that have marked some of the most fatal aviation disasters in history and have served as great learning examples on what to avoid in the future.
10. Air France Flight AF447
While the captain of Air France flight AF447 took a break, the plane’s autopilot suddenly disengaged and its co-pilot began receiving inconsistent readings for a few minutes – indicating that there was an issue with the plane’s speed sensors which were blocked by ice. After waking the pilot from his sleep, the co-pilot remained at the controls and raised the angle of the plane’s climb until it stalled three times and finally fell into the ocean, killing all onboard. The crash ultimately had little to do with the speed sensors and was blamed on the co-pilot’s choice to tilt the plane upwards as a response to the issue.
9. TransAsia Flight 235
Shortly after its takeoff on February 6th, 2015, one of TransAsia Flight 235’s engines experienced a flameout. As airplanes are able to fly on one engine alone, the pilot then shut off the engine – or so he thought. Instead, he accidentally shut off the correctly functioning one and left the plane powerless, at which point he unsuccessfully tried to restart both engines. The plane then clipped a bridge and plummeted into a Taiwanese river as the pilot desperately tried to avoid city terrain, killing 37 of the 53 onboard.
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