8. Eastern Airlines Flight 401

Eastern Airlines Flight 401 crashed into the Florida Everglades in 1972, killing 101 people on board and leaving 75 survivors to battle their way through swamp water to safety. Prior to landing, the flight crew was preoccupied with a faulty landing gear and didn’t notice that the autopilot had become disconnected, leading the aircraft to gradually lose altitude until it crashed. This is an example of what has become known in the industry as CFIT – Controlled Flight Into Terrain – which has happened in several other cases while pilots became overly distracted with one problem and didn’t notice their spatial surroundings until it was too late.

7. United Airlines Flight 173

United Airlines flight 173 suffered fuel exhaustion and crashed short of the runway in a suburban Portland neighborhood in 1978, miraculously only killing 10 of its 189 people on board. After becoming distracted with a faulty landing gear, the pilot decided to abort the plane’s initial landing to assess the problem and prepare passenger’s for an emergency landing. In the process, the flight crew became so absorbed with the issue that everybody failed to realize that the aircraft was about to run out of fuel. Flight 173 became a textbook example in aviation training in an effort to try to teach future flight crews to maintain situational awareness when problems occur in the cockpit.

...[ Continue to next page ]

Share This Post