Nigerian Air Crash Kills 117 (Edited Version)

Here's a piece of news that could aggravate aviophobia. A passenger aircraft crashes yet again. From Reuters:

All 117 likely killed in Nigerian air crash

LISSA, Nigeria (Reuters) - A Nigerian airliner with 117 people aboard crashed and disintegrated in flames shortly after take-off from Lagos and there was no sign of survivors, officials and the Nigerian Red Cross said on Sunday.

Dismembered and burned body parts, fuselage fragments and engine parts were strewn over an area the size of a football field near the village of Lissa, about 30 km north of Lagos.

Video grab shows the crash site of the Nigerian airliner in Lissa, about 30 km north of Lagos, October 23, 2005. (REUTERS/Nigerian Television Authority via Reuters TV)

"The aircraft has crashed and it is a total loss. We can't even see a whole human body," a senior police official said at the scene. The Bellview Airlines plane, which left Lagos on Saturday night on a scheduled flight to the capital Abuja, left a smoking 70 foot crater in the marshy earth, uprooted trees and blew the roofs off nearby houses.

"I can't confirm if there are any survivors, but there is no trace so far," Red Cross General Secretary Abiodun Orebiyi told Reuters after visiting the scene. "The plane was totally destroyed. It was scattered everywhere."

A wig, human intestines, clothes, foam seats and a hand were visible wedged in the sodden earth. A cheque for 948,000 naira ($7,300) from the evangelical Deeper Life church was one of a number of personal papers found in the smouldering wreckage.
A U.S. official confirmed that a U.S. military officer was aboard the aircraft. [...]

Bellview Airlines flight 210 left at 8:45 p.m. (1945 GMT) and lost contact minutes later during a heavy electrical storm. It was carrying 111 passengers and six crew, the Federal Airport Authority said, updating an earlier figure of 110 passengers.

The pilot made a distress call after take-off, indicating the plane had a technical problem, a source at the presidency told Reuters.

Ten Deadliest Air Crashes In History (Edited Version)

Here's just for the record the 10 deadliest air crashes in history:

1. Tenerife
27 March 1977
Number of people killed: 583
Two Boeing 747s, operated by KLM and Pan Am, collide on a foggy runway at Tenerife, in Spain's Canary Islands. The KLM jet departed without permission, striking the Pan Am jet as it taxied along the same runway. Confusion over instructions and a blockage of radio transmissions contributed to the crash.

2. Mount Fuji
12 August 1985
Number of people killed: 520
A Japan Air Lines 747 crashes near Mount Fuji after takeoff from Tokyo on a domestic flight. The rupture of an aft bulkhead, which had undergone faulty repairs following a mishap seven years earlier, caused the destruction of part of the aeroplane's tail and rendered the jet uncontrollable. A JAL maintenance supervisor later committed suicide, while the president of the airline resigned, accepting full responsibility for the crash and visiting victims' families to offer a personal apology.

3. Delhi
12 November 1996
Number of people killed: 349
An Ilyushin IL-76 cargo plane from Kazakhstan collides in midair with a Saudia 747 near Delhi, India. The Kazakh crew had disobeyed instructions, and neither aircraft was equipped with collision-avoidance technology.

4. Orly
3 March 1974
Number of people killed: 346
A THY (Turkish Airlines) DC-10 crashes near Orly airport outside Paris. A poorly designed cargo door burst from its latches, leading to rapid depressurisation, failure of the cabin floor and impairment of cables to the rudders and elevators. Out of control, the plane slammed into woods northeast of Paris. McDonnell Douglas, maker of the DC-10, which would see even more controversy later, was forced to redesign its cargo door system.

5. Ireland
23 June 1985
Number
of people killed: 329
A bomb planted by Sikh extremists blows up an Air India 747 en route from Toronto to Bombay. The plane fell into the sea east of Ireland. Investigators in Canada cited shortcomings in baggage screening procedures, screening equipment, and employee training. A second bomb, intended to blow up another Air India 747 on the same day, detonated prematurely in a luggage facility in Tokyo before being loaded aboard.

6. Riyadh
19 August 1980
Number of people killed: 301
A Saudia L-1011 bound for Karachi returns to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, when a fire broke out on board shortly after takeoff. For reasons never fully understood, the crew delays evacuation after a safe touchdown and the aircraft rolls to the far end of the runway before finally stopping. No evacuation is commenced, and the plane then sits with its engines running for more than three minutes. Before any doors can be opened by the inadequately equipped rescue workers at Riyadh, everyone on the widebody died as the passenger cabin is killed by a flash-fire.

7. Straits of Hormuz
3 July 1988
Number of people killed: 290
An Airbus A300 operated by Iran Air is shot down over the Straits of Hormuz by the US navy destroyer Vincennes. The US military said the crew of the Vincennes were distracted by an ongoing armed battle and mistook the A300 for a hostile military aircraft. None of the passengers or crew survived.

8. Chicago
25 May 1979
Number of people killed: 273
As an American Airlines DC-10 takes off from Chicago's O'Hare airport, an engine detaches from its mounting seriously damaging a wing. Before its crew can react, the aeroplane rolls 90 degrees and disintegrates in a fireball about a mile beyond the runway. This remains the worst-ever US crash. Both the engine pylon design and airline maintenance procedures were faulted by NTSB investigators, and all DC-10s were temporarily grounded.

9. Lockerbie
21 December 1988
Number of
people killed: 270
Pan American flight 103, explodes in the night sky over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all the passengers, and 11 people on the ground. Two Libyan agents are later held responsible (one is convicted) for planting a bomb aboard the aircraft.

10. Sakhalin Island
1 September 1983
Number of people killed: 269
Korean Air Lines flight KL007, a 747, from New York to Seoul (with a technical stop in Anchorage) is shot down by a Soviet fighter after drifting off course - and into Soviet airspace - near Sakhalin Island in the North Pacific. The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) later attributes the mysterious deviation to "a considerable degree of lack of alertness and attentiveness on the part of the flight crew."

A statistical breakdown also includes the following:

Number of Boeing 747s involved in the 10 crashes: seven
Number resulting from terrorist sabotage or that were shot down mistakenly: four
Number that occurred in the US: one
Number that occurred prior to 1974: nil
Number that occurred during the 1970s or 1980s: nine
Number in which pilot error can be cited as a direct or contributing cause: three
Number that crashed as a direct result of mechanical failure: three

An accident survey of 2147 aeroplane accidents from 1950 through 2004 determined the causes to be as follows:

37%: Pilot error
33%: Undetermined or missing in the record
13%: Mechanical failure
7%: Weather
5%: Sabotage (bombs, hijackings, shoot-downs)
4%: Other human error (air traffic controller error, improper loading of aircraft, improper maintenance, fuel contamination, language miscommunication, etc)
1%: Other cause

The survey excluded military, private, and charter aircraft. Sources: Wikipedia.org; Salon.com. (Article by Patrick Smith); airlinesafety.com. Extracted from an Al-Jazeera report compiled and edited by Asim Khan.

Cell Phone Man Kicked Out Of Plane

This blog fully supports the action taken by the pilot of a Malaysia Airlines flight in kicking out a passenger for ignoring the instruction to switch off the mobile phone while inside the aircraft.

The passenger, according to the report, was a businessman on the way to Kota Kinabalu, which is about an hour's flight away. He kept on taking over the phone despite being repeatedly told to swith it off. Here is the story:

SIBU, Oct 5: A businessman "talked" his way out of a Malaysia Airlines flight from here to Kota Kinabalu on Monday.

The pilot ordered the businessman off the aircraft after he refused to listen to repeated requests from the crew to stop talking on his mobile phone. It is understood the man even ignored the pilot’s request to switch off the device.

The businessman was escorted off the aircraft by security officers. Flight MH2802, scheduled to take off at 9.15am, took off minutes later. It is not known if action can be taken against the man for delaying the flight. [...]

Sibu MAS manager Abdul Rahman Hassan, when contacted today, said the drama began when a passenger noticed the businessman using his handphone even as the aircraft began to roll down the runway.

The use of mobile phones on aircraft is generally forbidden during flight. One reason is that the use of the device could interfere with sensitive equipment on the aircraft. [Source: The New Straits Times]

The businessman in the report was not being helpful, even inconsiderate, to other passengers who might not be as free from the fear of flying as he. It's even unfair to the majority of other passengers who duly abide by the instruction.

I should really kick up a big fuss the next time I saw people talking on their phone inside an aircraft. You see, I don't mind being exposed to danger so long as it's worth it. Hell, we all are willing to die for a cause.

But I hate it if my safety is being put in jeopardy because of the foolishness of others!