Autumn Macabre
November 1, 2024
Forgive me for being morbid, but did you know that no fewer than six major airline crashes occurred on Halloween?
That’s right, six.
Ranked chronologically, they go like this…
1. On Halloween morning, 1979, Western Airlines Flight 2605 crashed in Mexico City killing 73 people. The crew attempted to land on a closed runway in the fog. The DC-10 hit a truck, then careened into a building.
2. On the night of October 31, 1994, American Eagle Flight 4184 went down near Roselawn, Indiana killing all 68 passengers and crew. Investigators found that a design flaw allowed ice accretion to cause an uncommanded aileron reversal, which threw the ATR-72 into an unrecoverable dive. The plane’s de-icing system was redesigned.
3. Two years later the day, TAM flight 402 crashed after takeoff from São Paulo, Brazil, after a thrust reverser deployed during climb. All 99 people aboard the Fokker 100 jetliner were killed.
4. Exactly three years later, EgyptAir Flight 990 crashed into the Atlantic near Nantucket, killing 217. Investigators determined that the first officer intentionally crashed the Boeing 767.
5. On Halloween night, 2000, the crew of Singapore Airlines Flight 006 attempted takeoff on a closed runway in Taipei, Taiwan. The Boeing 747 collided with construction equipment and burst into flames. Eighty-three of the plane’s 179 occupants died.
6. On October 31, 2015, Metrojet flight 9268, a Russian charter flight heading from Sharm El Sheihk, Egypt, to St. Petersburng, was destroyed by a bomb after takeoff. All 224 passengers and crew on the Airbus A321 were killed. It is believed the bomb was planted by operatives of the Islamic State group.
There you have it. There can’t possibly be a calendar day with a record worse than October 31.
There’s nothing going on here other than chance, of course. Bad luck is bad luck. Still it’s peculiar. I’m not normally superstitious, but can you find any patterns?
I had this to mull over on Halloween night, flying a 767 to Europe.
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3 Responses to “Autumn Macabre”
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“4. Exactly three years later, EgyptAir Flight 990 crashed into the Atlantic near Nantucket, killing 217. Investigators determined that the first officer intentionally crashed the Boeing 767.”
To this day, the Egyptian government still disputes the NTSB’s findings, despite overwhelming evidence supporting our people’s work. There is no question after seeing the flight data recorder (FDR) transcript that the 767 was intentionally put into a dive that brought the plane very close to supersonic speed and started to precipitate an airframe breakup. I should note that the FDR (and the cockpit voice record) shut down after the FO killed the engines in his effort to crash the plane. So what transpired in the cockpit after that is unknown.
There was no question this was intentional, which is why the NTSB wanted the FBI to get involved in the investigation. The Egyptians would not allow it.
Why not good news for Boeing? They don’t make engines. This should be a win for Boeing–aircraft was flyable despite the situation!
Yeah, yeah, I know, press probably covered it as Boeing’s fault.
Don’t know if you have caught up with the news that an engine blew up on a Qantas plane on take off from Sydney to Brisbane. The pilots who had reached the point of no return managed to get the 737 into the air before circling around and landing back at Sydney. Just goes to show how professional the QF pilots are and how times have changed. Not good news for Boeing though. Just thought you’d be interested. Chris.