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Worst plane crashes
14/08/2005 17:17 - (SA)
Athens - The crash of a Cypriot airliner with 121 people on board near Athens looked set to be the worst air disaster in Greek history.
Following is a list of the worst plane crashes from 1977 to 2004.
1977
March 27: The deadliest airline plane crash claims 583 lives when two Boeing 747s collide at Tenerife airport in Spain's Canary Islands.
1978
Jan 1: An Air India Boeing 747 crashes into the sea shortly after take-off from Bombay, with the loss of 213 lives.
1979
May 25: An American Airlines DC-10 loses an engine and crashes on take-off from Chicago, killing 272 people.
Nov 28: An Air New Zealand DC-10 taking tourists to the South Pole hits a mountain in Antarctica and 257 people perish.
1980
Aug 19: About 300 people die when fire engulfs a Saudi Arabian Airlines Tristar at Riyadh airport.
1983
Sept 1: Korean Air Lines 747 is shot down by a Soviet fighter after flying through Soviet air space near Sakhalin Island, off the Pacific coast. All 269 people aboard die.
1985
Aug 12: The worst accident involving a single airliner kills 520 people when a Japan Airlines Boeing 747 comes down while on a domestic flight from Tokyo to Osaka.
Dec 12: A DC-8 belonging to Arrow Airlines and chartered by the US Air Force crashes on take-off from Gander airport in Newfoundland, killing 256 people, 248 of them American servicemen.
1988
July 3: An Iran Air A300 Airbus is shot down over the Persian Gulf by the US cruiser Vincennes after being mistaken for an attacking plane, killing all 290 on board.
Dec 21: Pan Am Boeing 747 crashes in Lockerbie, Scotland, after a bomb aboard the plane explodes, killing 270 people, including 11 on the ground.
1991
May 26: A mid-air explosion destroys a Boeing 767 belonging to the Austrian airline Lauda-Air about 180 kilometres north of the Thai capital, Bangkok, killing 223 people.
July 11: A DC-8 chartered from the Canadian company Nationair to fly pilgrims to Mecca in Saudi Arabia explodes shortly after leaving Jeddah airport, with the loss of 261 lives.
1994
April 26: A China Airlines Airbus A300-600 explodes during an aborted landing at Nagoya airport in central Japan, killing 264 people.
1996
Jan 8: More than 300 people die when a Russian-built Antonov-32 freight plane plunges into a crowded market in Kinshasa, the capital of then Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo.
July 17: A mid-air explosion destroys a Paris-bound TWA Boeing 747 shortly after take-off from New York with the loss of 230 lives.
Nov 12: A Saudi Airlines Boeing 747 leaves New Delhi and collides in mid-air with a Kazakh Ilyushin-76; a total of 349 people are killed.
1997
Aug 5: A Korean Air Boeing 747 plunges into the jungle on the US-administered island of Guam in the North Pacific with the loss of 226 lives.
Sept 26: An Airbus A300 belonging to the Indonesian airline Garuda crashes near Medan on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, killing 234 people.
1998
Feb 16: A China Airlines Airbus A300-600 crashes near Taipei international airport after hitting nearby houses: 202 people are killed.
Sept 2: Swissair Flight 111 plunges into the Atlantic Ocean after take-off from New York on a flight to Geneva, killing all 229 people aboard.
1999
October 31: An Egyptair Boeing 767 plunges into the Atlantic off the US coast with 217 people on board. No survivors.
2000
January 31: A Kenya Airways Airbus A310 plunges into the Ocean after take-off from Ivory Coast's economic capital Abidjan, killing 169 people.
April 19: An Air Philippines 737-200 crashes on the island of Samal in the south of the Philippines, killing 131 people.
July 9: 113 people die in the crash of a Coral DC-4 cargo plane after take-off from Villavicencio southeast of the Colombian capital Bogota.
July 25: A New York-bound supersonic Concorde owned by Air France crashes onto a hotel after take-off from Paris, killing 113 people.
Aug 23: A Gulf Air Airbus A-320 plunges into the Gulf of Bahrain shortly before landing, killing 143 people.
2001
July 3: A VladivostokAvia TU-154 plane crashes near the Siberian city of Irkutsk, killing 145 people.
Sept 11: Two hijacked American Airlines Boeing 767s are crashed into the twin towers of New York's World Trade Centre as a United Airlines plane ploughs into the Pentagon in Washington. The total toll, including the crash of a Washington-bound hijacked airliner in a field in Pennsylvania, stands at 3 038.
October 8: An SAS MD 87 carrying 104 passengers and six crew smashes into a luggage depot after hitting a German small plane with four people on board at Milan's Linate airport, killing 118 people.
Nov 12: An American Airlines A-300 Airbus crashes into the Queens borough of New York City shortly after take-off from New York's John F Kennedy airport, killing 265 people, including five on the ground.
2002
Feb 12: A Tupolev-154 on an Iranian domestic flight crashes in the southwest of the country, killing 119.
April 15: An Air China Boeing 767 crashes in a residential area near Gimhae, South Korea, killing 129 people.
May 7: An MD-82 belonging to airline China Northern goes down in the sea off northeast China, killing 112 people.
May 25: A Boeing 747-200 belonging to Taiwan's China Airlines breaks up in mid-air during a flight to Hong Kong, killing 225 people.
2003
Feb 19: A military plane crashes into a mountainside in Iran's southeastern Sirch mountains, killing 276 people.
March 6: An Air Algerie plane crashes at Tamanrasset airport in the south of the country, killing 102 people.
May 8: About 200 passengers are killed, according to airport officials, after the rear door of an Ilyushin-76 plane belonging to the Ukrainian defence ministry bursts open in mid-flight over the Democratic Republic of Congo.
July 8: A Sudanese airliner bound for Khartoum crashes with the loss of all but one of the 116 passengers and crew aboard.
Dec 25: A plane owned by Guinean-based airline UTA crashes into the sea off the west African state of Benin, killing 139 people, many of them Lebanese.
2004
Jan 3: All 135 passengers, most of them French, and six crew die when their Egyptian charter plane falls into the Red Sea.
- AFP
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