Most Dangerous Airlines?

[brahmburgers]

Looking objectively, which airlines would you advise to steer clear of?

There was Egypt Air 990 in 1999 in which the pilot allegedly turned off the auto-pilot and manually steered the plane to steepest possible descent to the Atlantic ocean. On the recording, the pilot is heard saying 'allah akbar' (god is great) just as the auto pilot was switched off. And there appears to be sounds of a struggle by the co-pilot to overpower the pilot in doing in dastardly act - that appears to have been a suicide and murder of all on board.

in 1997, a Silk Air (Singaporean) flight 185 crashed in Indonesia - killing all on board. That also appeared to be a suicide/mass murder.

In both the above-mentioned crashes, the pilots were devout Muslims.

An interesting site http://www.wisner-law.com/experience.html leans toward mechanical failures for both those crashes. It's understandable, as they're in the business of garnering as much payments for damages in their capacity of representing the plaintiff families of the dead. Upon further reflection, it makes business sense to sue Boeing rather than try to sue the airlines themselves, because proving suicidal intent is nearly impossible.

[Crossy]

One Two GO, but that's for personal reasons rather than any actual statistics. I avoid all low-cost carriers, period!

Some data here http://www.planecrashinfo.com/rates.htm although I'd take with a pinch of salt as Garuda Indonesia ranks better than Thai International and only slightly worse that Singapore Airlines.

[singa-traz]

in 1997, a Silk Air (Singaporean) flight 185 crashed in Indonesia - killing all on board. That also appeared to be a suicide/mass murder.

In both the above-mentioned crashes, the pilots were devout Muslims.

In both crashes, pilot were men. Only fly with female pilot !

For the silk air crash, I don't remember reading anything about the religious aspect of the pilot, not even rumours from people in the industry.

This comment is out of line.

[torrenova]

www.airsafe.com will send you an email for every event. Loads of data as well.

Of course you have the wonderful Garuda Indonesia (whatever the stats say) then the Orient Air (own Nok Air ala Phuket last year I believe who have their planes serviced by Garuda I understand). Then the great Phuket Air with their knackered old 747. Loads of African small fry and then that one in Cuba with ancient Russian stuff. Lots also in the ex USSR.

Most dangerous plane ? Concorde. Was the safest, then the most dangerous due to limited number and very low number of flights.

Interestingly in the UK, Ryanair went the route of old planes so cheap to buy but expensive to service whilst EasyJet went new planes with cheap servicing. Of course now both buying loads of new planes. Stelios (of EasyJet) said in the first few years of the low cost carriers that one crash would wipe them out as a business model, not a company as people would associate cheap with cutting corners on safety.

[brahmburgers]

in 1997, a Silk Air (Singaporean) flight 185 crashed in Indonesia - killing all on board. That also appeared to be a suicide/mass murder.

In both the above-mentioned crashes, the pilots were devout Muslims.

In both crashes, pilot were men. Only fly with female pilot !

For the silk air crash, I don't remember reading anything about the religious aspect of the pilot, not even rumours from people in the industry.

This comment is out of line.

reasonably good call from singa-traz. Upon doing some added searching, I did find one series of comments online that alluded to the pilot of the Silk Air flight as being Muslim. However, his religion seemed to have little or nothing to do with the apparent suicide/murder - regarding him deliberately crashing the plane. He had just been demoted and had just lost a bundle on stock market trading. There's interesting info at the following two URL's for anyone wanting added details:

http://www.singapore-window.org/sw00/001026sm.htm

http://www.singapore-window.org/81003sc1.htm

here's a quote from the latter URL: "Pilot murder-suicide or sabotage is not unknown, say aviation experts, though it is extraordinarily rare. In 1994, Moroccan pilot Younes Khyati committed suicide by deliberately crashing a Royal Air Maroc turboprop aircraft into the Atlas mountains near Casablanca, killing all 44 on board. Morocco's Transport Ministry said examination of the flight recorders showed the crash was due to ''the pilot's wish to end his life''. A suicidal pilot in a Japan Air Lines DC8 dived the aircraft into the sea in 1982, causing 24 deaths.

Aircraft have also crashed as a result of life insurance policies. In 1973 the explosion of a Cathay Pacific Convair 880 over the central highlands of South Vietnam, resulting in the deaths of 81 people, was blamed on a scheming Thai police officer who had taken out life insurance policies worth 5.5 million baht on his girlfriend and his nine-year-old daughter."

[yorkman]

Interesting Brahmbergers,

At first I was not quite sure where you were going with this. I thought you were hinting at avoiding all airlines with Muslim pilots because they might be potential suicide crashers, so read and did not comment. It appears not, and anyway the numbers dont support that.

The problem with all these things is that it is statistics, and the statistics are derived from accidents, not how fault should be apportioned.

An perfect example was posted above. Concorde went from the safest aircraft in the world to the least safe, after 1 crash.

To add to that the causes of accidents are from multiple other causes than the two you mentioned, pilot suicides and mechanical malfunctions, so that is no indication of safety.

And then there are the low cost airlines. But in many instances these are offshoots from mainstream players, just a different operating model to tap into a different market. Their aircraft are maintained in the same facilities as the parent, and while their crew pool is seperate, they are trained and regulated to the same standard.

Directly from the FAA site, I can post the link if you wish

"A report prepared for the FAA by GRA, Inc. entitled A Report on Issues Related to Public Interest in Aviation Safety Data, found that "... there currently is no evidence in accident data that would support the ranking of individual airlines based on their safety records….While there may be apparent differences in carrier safety records at any particular time, due largely to the infrequent but catastrophic nature of an air accident, there is no evidence that such distinctions persist nor that they are predictive of future safety performance. Rankings of airlines based on past accident records therefore provide no information to consumers seeking to make safety-enhancing comparisons for current or future travel choices."

Now that is obviously complete <deleted> as far as some minor operators in 3rd world countries are concerned, agreed, but they cannot operate internationally as they are banned from the airspace in wide swathes of the world. But here is an example of how transparent this is http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3372339.stm

So to put this into perspective, (copied from elsewhere, not my words)

"Here is another better way of explaining the statistics. In 1996, the NTSB came up the statement that scheduled commercial airlines had a fatal accident rate of 0.026 per 100,000 flying hours. Translated very simply, this would show that a passenger would have to fly 24 hours a day for over 400 years before he would be involved in a fatal accident.

The 10-year survey compiled by Dr Arnold Barnett for the period 1987 to 1996 indicated that the mortality risk per flight for International jet in the advanced world was one in five million. That is equivalent to taking a random flight everyday for about 13,000 years (5,000,000 divided by 365 days) to be involved in a fatal crash. In the lesser ranking airlines, the mortality risk per passenger flight is in the region of around 1 in 400,000. Even with this lower rate, you still have to take a flight every day for about 1000 years before you are likely to be involved in a fatal accident."

I love this quote from Wilber Wright, who had perhaps the best perspective on this:

"If you are looking for perfect safety, you will do well to sit on a fence and watch the birds"

[tw25rw]

the Orient Air (own Nok Air ala Phuket last year I believe who have their planes serviced by Garuda I understand).

Orient Thai own 1-2-Go not Nok Air.

[A_Traveller]

RE Yorkman's point highlighted by the BBC link. This is way out of date, indeed the events highlighted contributed to a rapid processing of a legal framework {Regulation 2111/2005 EC} to provide the EU airline blacklist to the public. LINK Surprised that as a pilot the poster was not aware of this change.

Regards

PS For a period of time Phuket Airways was banned but is now permitted into EU airspace.

[brahmburgers]

Interesting Brahmbergers,

At first I was not quite sure where you were going with this. I thought you were hinting at avoiding all airlines with Muslim pilots because they might be potential suicide crashers, so read and did not comment. It appears not, and anyway the numbers dont support that.

Actually, I admit I was originally taking jabs at Muslim pilots, but then the more I researched, the more I realized that the chance of something going fataly bad (due to their religious fervor) is an anomoly, though not impossible. Call me racist if you choose, but if I were to board a plane and the pilot was a declared radical Muslim, I would switch my flight - on that basis. I acknowledge that suicide/mass murder flights are very rare, but they have been known to exist - and currently, the most suicide/mass murder prone people on the planet are radical Muslims.

It was the Egypt Air tragedy that jangled my perspective. The tragedy was exacerbated (in my view) when Egypt Air management vehemently denied any possibility of it being a suicide/mass murder - when a hard look at the facts indicated it was. Egypt Air's official statement said that a man who had gone on pilgrimage to Mecca (which the pilot had) was incapable of commiting suicide.

[IMA_FARANG]

Looking objectively, which airlines would you advise to steer clear of?

There was Egypt Air 990 in 1999 in which the pilot allegedly turned off the auto-pilot and manually steered the plane to steepest possible descent to the Atlantic ocean. On the recording, the pilot is heard saying 'allah akbar' (god is great) just as the auto pilot was switched off. And there appears to be sounds of a struggle by the co-pilot to overpower the pilot in doing in dastardly act - that appears to have been a suicide and murder of all on board.

in 1997, a Silk Air (Singaporean) flight 185 crashed in Indonesia - killing all on board. That also appeared to be a suicide/mass murder.

In both the above-mentioned crashes, the pilots were devout Muslims.

An interesting site http://www.wisner-law.com/experience.html leans toward mechanical failures for both those crashes. It's understandable, as they're in the business of garnering as much payments for damages in their capacity of representing the plaintiff families of the dead. Upon further reflection, it makes business sense to sue Boeing rather than try to sue the airlines themselves, because proving suicidal intent is nearly impossible.

That Egypt Air crash you speak about....his parents are violently opposed to the suggestion that he commited suicide. His parents say that he had just agreed to go along with their wish for his wedding ceremony (pre-arranged by his family) to occur, so why would he commit suicide? There is some suggestion that he had a boyfriend and therefore wasn't interested in or willing to marry his proposed wife.

Statistically, the airlines to avoid are the small African countries' airlines.

Back in the 1930's there was a small airline called Trans-Texas Airways known by many as Tree Top Airways. They were famous for not scheduling the aircraft to leave until every seat was full. Passengers were never sure exactly where the flight was headed first, if they had 3 passengers for town X and 2 for town Y, the flight went to town X first. Then if the airplane could still fly they went on to town Y.

But that airline is long out of business, although it later became Southwest Airlines (many years later after WWII)

[yorkman]

Actually, I admit I was originally taking jabs at Muslim pilots, but then the more I researched, the more I realized that the chance of something going fataly bad (due to their religious fervor) is an anomoly, though not impossible. Call me racist if you choose, but if I were to board a plane and the pilot was a declared radical Muslim, I would switch my flight - on that basis. I acknowledge that suicide/mass murder flights are very rare, but they have been known to exist - and currently, the most suicide/mass murder prone people on the planet are radical Muslims.

It was the Egypt Air tragedy that jangled my perspective. The tragedy was exacerbated (in my view) when Egypt Air management vehemently denied any possibility of it being a suicide/mass murder - when a hard look at the facts indicated it was. Egypt Air's official statement said that a man who had gone on pilgrimage to Mecca (which the pilot had) was incapable of commiting suicide.

Of course I would not say you were racist. You said nothing to support that, Islam is religion rather than a race after all and is far from confined to any arabic state.

As I remember another one was Japanese, who tried to do this and killed a few, so they are probably best avoided as well

Just kidding you, but honestly, how are you ever going to know one of the pilots is a radical muslim? Unless he/she comes over the passenger address saying "Good morning true believers and wicked infidels, this is your captain speaking" its going to be tricky to tell

Is that right about Egypt Air's statement? I dont recall. Well after 9/11, when some of the perpetrators had apparently been on hajj, I guess they wont be using that one again

[brahmburgers]

Looking objectively, which airlines would you advise to steer clear of?

There was Egypt Air 990 in 1999 in which the pilot allegedly turned off the auto-pilot and manually steered the plane to steepest possible descent to the Atlantic ocean. On the recording, the pilot is heard saying 'allah akbar' (god is great) just as the auto pilot was switched off. And there appears to be sounds of a struggle by the co-pilot to overpower the pilot in doing in dastardly act - that appears to have been a suicide and murder of all on board.

in 1997, a Silk Air (Singaporean) flight 185 crashed in Indonesia - killing all on board. That also appeared to be a suicide/mass murder.

In both the above-mentioned crashes, the pilots were devout Muslims.

An interesting site http://www.wisner-law.com/experience.html leans toward mechanical failures for both those crashes. It's understandable, as they're in the business of garnering as much payments for damages in their capacity of representing the plaintiff families of the dead. Upon further reflection, it makes business sense to sue Boeing rather than try to sue the airlines themselves, because proving suicidal intent is nearly impossible.

That Egypt Air crash you speak about....his parents are violently opposed to the suggestion that he commited suicide. His parents say that he had just agreed to go along with their wish for his wedding ceremony (pre-arranged by his family) to occur, so why would he commit suicide?

Parents are notorious for siding with their siblings regardless of what messes their kids are accused of.

Plus, it's quite likely that pension payments and/or insurance and/or damage payments hinged on the court's verdict of what happened.

Getting back to my original post and the mention of the Law firm that hadles many high profile cases: Jurisdiction is a key component when it comes to litigations stemming from injuries on a flight. Lawyers will most often want to get jurisdiction in a rich country, because payouts will be higher. Plus (as alluded to earlier), suing the giant corporation like Boeing can reap larger pay-outs than a mid-sized carrier like Egypt Air. Plus, it would be near impossible to get a guilty verdict against Egypt Air in an Egyptian court.

A different scenario, but about 8 years ago there was a Thai Airways plane crash in Suratani. It's probably been discussed at length on T.Visa. First off, it was not a suicide, but it did appear to be grave pilot error - and resulted in deaths. As soon as the news hit, Thai Airways management vehemently denied it could have been pilot error. It's akin to former PM Thaksin giving strong opinions on a criminal topic as soon as he gets the breaking news. He did that every time while in office.

It ties in with Thai thinking, in that; if an important person makes an adamant statement about a scenario, then law enforcement should take that as policy statement, and all efforts by detectives, etc should work toward upholding that description of events. It also works rather well in giving the Thai people a focal point re; what happened - and not let such trivial things as 'scientific findings' get in the way of what big brother tells them to think.

[apetley]

Several years ago I read about some airline in one of the old Russian republics, Georgia?

After a series of unfortunate 'events' you had a 1 in 300 chance of dieing on one of their flights.

[A_Traveller]

On the serious subject of Egypt Air 990, the NTSB report {PDF} includes a rebuttal by ECAA, which is interesting. There is not just discussion about cultural questions, exemplified, though external to the report by the 'leak' of the pilot {RFO} saying 'I made my decision now. I put my faith in God's hands.' when in fact the CVR has 'I rely on God', which has been argued is more in line with trying to get the aircraft out of trouble rather than into it. THE NTSB however, argued that the responses from the RFO where not stressed. The transcript is also problematic in that a critical section has never been successfully clarified.

The five Arabic speaking members of the group concur that they do not recognize this as an Arabic word, words, or phrase. The entire group agrees that three syllables are heard and the accent is on the second syllable. Four Arabic speaking group members believe that they heard words similar to "control it". One English speaking member believes that he heard a word similar to "hydraulic". The five other members believe that the word(s) were unintelligible.

Some noted at the time of the report being issued that there was no mention of the report of by the captain of an earlier flight on the accident airplane where he had experienced autopilot problems that had caused him to disconnect the autopilot. The Egyptian view was that the NTSB seemed to focus early on the so called suicide theory and were less diligent in reviewing other areas. I recall a long discussion about this with a number of people contemporaneously and somehow, though not impossible the theory seemed to be a tad too convenient, there was damage which was not entirely consistent with the RFO only scenario but was hedged with the standard caveat, might or might not be impact related.

All in all a very strange event, from all perspectives.

Regards

/edit format//

[buffcoat]

The deadliest air accident between two 747's at Tenerife in 1977 was caused by a Dutch pilot....so I would be really worried if your notional muslim radical pilot also had a strong Dutch accent

Air safety is excellent until you get involved with sub standard operators in the third world and ex-soviet start-ups.

[ClaytonSeymour]

Looking objectively, which airlines would you advise to steer clear of?

There was Egypt Air 990 in 1999 in which the pilot allegedly turned off the auto-pilot and manually steered the plane to steepest possible descent to the Atlantic ocean. On the recording, the pilot is heard saying 'allah akbar' (god is great) just as the auto pilot was switched off. And there appears to be sounds of a struggle by the co-pilot to overpower the pilot in doing in dastardly act - that appears to have been a suicide and murder of all on board.

in 1997, a Silk Air (Singaporean) flight 185 crashed in Indonesia - killing all on board. That also appeared to be a suicide/mass murder.

In both the above-mentioned crashes, the pilots were devout Muslims.

An interesting site http://www.wisner-law.com/experience.html leans toward mechanical failures for both those crashes. It's understandable, as they're in the business of garnering as much payments for damages in their capacity of representing the plaintiff families of the dead. Upon further reflection, it makes business sense to sue Boeing rather than try to sue the airlines themselves, because proving suicidal intent is nearly impossible.

That Egypt Air crash you speak about....his parents are violently opposed to the suggestion that he commited suicide. His parents say that he had just agreed to go along with their wish for his wedding ceremony (pre-arranged by his family) to occur, so why would he commit suicide? There is some suggestion that he had a boyfriend and therefore wasn't interested in or willing to marry his proposed wife. I think you're a bit confused, see this link for further info on Gameel Al-Batouti: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gameel_Al-Bat...d_personal_life

Statistically, the airlines to avoid are the small African countries' airlines.

Back in the 1930's there was a small airline called Trans-Texas Airways known by many as Tree Top Airways. They were famous for not scheduling the aircraft to leave until every seat was full. Passengers were never sure exactly where the flight was headed first, if they had 3 passengers for town X and 2 for town Y, the flight went to town X first. Then if the airplane could still fly they went on to town Y.

But that airline is long out of business, although it later became Southwest Airlines (many years later after WWII)

[Tinkelbell]

I totally agree ......."Air safety is excellent until you get involved with sub standard operators in the third world and ex-soviet start-ups....."

Everyday tens of thousands flights (dormestic and international ) are operating from the U.S. airports across the country. That figure is really impressive in term of safety from U.S. airliners.

[yorkman]

The deadliest air accident between two 747's at Tenerife in 1977 was caused by a Dutch pilot....so I would be really worried if your notional muslim radical pilot also had a strong Dutch accent

Air safety is excellent until you get involved with sub standard operators in the third world and ex-soviet start-ups.

So thats anybody vaguely Arabic, the Japanese, Indonesians, North Africans and now the Euro's that can be identified by their clogs that need to be disqualified to fly.

If we put aside the Thai pilots who are probably drinking whisky and gambling in the cockpit, its just not safe to fly is it?

[tso310]

The SilkAir crash featured in Air Crash Investigations on National Geographic. Only the US NTSB said it was a pilot suicide. The Singapore and Indonesion investigators pointed to a fault in the aircrafts rudder. I thought the NTSBs argument about the pilot deliberately crashing the aircraft was pretty flimsy. The pilots religon never came up in the program I far as I can remember. The NTSB claimed he was in debt and it was an insurance job. The program pointed out that he was purchasing a new house and the taking out an insurance policy was a necessary part of obtaining the mortgage. Its worth watching this particular episode.

[gunnyd]

I wouldn't call it the most dangerous airline, but I have had the living begeezus scared out of me on several flights on Philippine Airlines. And I am not taking into account the fact that they have had bombings on their flights.

There's nothing more sphincter tightening than an aborted landing (I've been through 3 with them) and being bounced around like a beach ball during the fights for hours at a time. Unfortunately they are the only one flying directly into Cebu except Cathay Pacific. I would fly Cathay but they charge 5 times more for business class.