World Accidents ec

Aviation

1. 
   583 – Tenerife airport disaster (Tenerife, 1977) The Tenerife airport disaster occurred on March 27, 1977, when two Boeing 747 passenger aircraft collided on the runway of Los Rodeos Airport (now known as Tenerife North Airport) on the Spanish island of Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands. With a total of 583 fatalities, the crash is the deadliest accident in aviation history.The aircraft involved, KLM Flight 4805 and Pan Am Flight 1736, were, along with many other aircraft, diverted to Tenerife from Gran Canaria Airport after a bomb exploded there. The threat of a second bomb forced the authorities to close the airport while a search was conducted. So many airplanes were diverted to the smaller Tenerife airport that controllers were forced to park many of them on the taxiway, thereby blocking it. Further complicating the situation, while waiting for authorities to reopen Gran Canaria, a dense fog developed at Tenerife, greatly reducing visibility. When Gran Canaria reopened, the parked aircraft blocking the taxiway at Tenerife required both 747s to taxi on the only runway in order to get in position for takeoff. Due to the fog, neither aircraft could see the other, nor could the controller in the tower see the runway or the two 747s on it. As the airport did not have ground radar, the only means for the controller to identify the location of each airplane was via voice reports over the radio. As a result of several misunderstandings in the ensuing communication, the KLM flight attempted to take off while the Pan Am flight was still on the runway. The resulting collision destroyed both aircraft, killing all 248 aboard the KLM flight and 335 out of 396 aboard the Pan Am flight. 61 people aboard the Pan Am flight, including the pilots and flight engineer, survived the disaster.^[1] As the accident occurred on Spanish territory, that nation was responsible for investigating the accident. Investigators from the Netherlands and the United States also participated. The investigation would reveal the primary cause of the accident was the captain of the KLM flight took off without clearance from Air Traffic Control.^[1] The investigation would however specify that the captain did not intentionally take off without clearance, rather he fully believed he had clearance to take off due to misunderstandings between his flight crew and ATC.^[1] Dutch investigators would place a greater emphasis on this than their American and Spanish counterparts,^[2] but ultimately KLM would admit their crew was responsible for the accident, and the airline financially compensated the victims.^[3]The accident had a large influence on the industry, particularly in the area of communication. An increased emphasis was placed on using standardized phraseology in ATC communication by both controllers and pilots alike, thereby reducing the chance for misunderstandings. As part of these changes, the word "takeoff" was removed from general usage, and is only spoken by ATC when actually clearing an aircraft to take off.^[4] Less experienced flight crew members were encouraged to challenge their captains when they believed something was not correct, and captains were instructed to listen to their crew and evaluate all decisions in light of crew concerns. This concept would later be expanded into what is known today as Crew Resource Management. CRM training is now mandatory for all airline pilots.
   
2. 
   520 – Japan Airlines Flight 123 (Japan, 1985)
   
3. 
   349 – 1996 Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision (India, 1996)
   
4. 
   346 – Turkish Airlines Flight 981 (Paris, 1974)
   
5. 
   329 – Air India Flight 182 (Atlantic Ocean, 1985)
   
6. 
   302 – 2003 Iran Ilyushin Il-76 crash (Iran, 2003)
   
7. 
   301 – Saudia Flight 163 (Riyadh, 1980)
   
8. 
   ~300 – Air Africa Antonov An-32 (Kinshasa, 1996)
   
9. 
   290 – Iran Air Flight 655 (Persian Gulf, 1988)
   
10. 
    273 – American Airlines Flight 191 (Chicago, 1979)
    
11. 
    228 – Air France Flight 447 (Atlantic Ocean, 2009)
    
12. 
    168 – Caspian Airlines Flight 7908 (Tehran, Iran, 2009)
    
13. 
    154 – Spanair Flight 5022 (Madrid, Spain, 2008)
    
14. 
    152 – Airblue Flight 202 (Pakistan, 2010)
    
15. 
    152 – Yemenia Flight 626 (Indian Ocean, 30 June 2009)
    
16. 
    103 – Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771, (Libya, 12 May 2010)
    
17. 
    96 – 2010 Polish Air Force Tu-154 crash (Smolensk, Russia, April 10, 2010)
    
18. 
    90 – Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409, (Mediterranean Sea, 25 January 2010)
    
19. 
    88 – Aeroflot Flight 821 (Perm, Russia, 2008)
    
20. 
    80 – 2011 Royal Moroccan Air Force Lockheed C-130 Hercules crash, (Guelmim, Morocco, 2011)
    
21. 
    79 – Korean Air Flight 803, (Tripoli, Libya, July 1989)
    
22. 
    77 – Iran Air Flight 277, (Urmia Airport, Urmia, Iran, January 2011)
    
23. 
    74 – Hewa Bora Airways Flight 952, (Kisangani, Democratic Republic of the Congo, 8 July 2011)
    
24. 
    68 – Iran Aseman Airlines Flight 6895, 24 August 2008
    
25. 
    68 – Aero Caribbean Flight 883, 5 November 2010
    
26. 
    50 – Continental Airlines Flight 3407 (Buffalo, 2009)
    
27. 
    44 – Pamir Airways Flight 112 (Afghanistan, 2010)
    
28. 
    44 – Lokomotiv Yaroslavl plane crash (Yaroslavl, Russia, 7 September 2011)
    
29. 
    42 – Henan Airlines Flight 8387, Lindu Airport, China, 24 August 2010
    
30. 
    32 – United Nations Bombardier CRJ-100 crash (Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2011)
    
31. 
    25 – Merpati Nusantara Airlines Flight 8968 (Off the coast of West Papua, Indonesia, 7 May 2011) [edit] Coal mine disasters
    

Coal Disasters

1. 
   1,549 – Benxihu Colliery explosion, (China, 1942) Benxihu (Honkeiko) Colliery (simplified Chinese: 本溪湖煤矿; traditional Chinese: 本溪湖煤礦), located in Benxi, Liaoning, China, was first mined in 1905. It started as a iron and coal mining project under joint Japanese and Chinese control. As time passed, the project came more and more under Japanese control. In the early 1930s, Japan invaded the north east of China and Liaoning province became part of the Japanese controlled puppet state of Manchukuo. The Japanese forced the Chinese to work the colliery under very poor conditions. Food was scarce and workers didn't have sufficient clothing.^[1] Working conditions were harsh and diseases such as typhoid and cholera flourished.^[2] Typically miners worked 12 hour shifts or longer. The Japanese controllers were known to beat workers with pick handles and the perimeter of the mine was fenced and guarded. Many describe the work as slave labour.On April 26, 1942, a gas and coal-dust explosion in the mine killed 1,549, 34% of the miners working that day, making it the worst disaster in the history of coal mining to date. The explosion sent flames bursting out of the mine shaft entrance. Miners' relatives rushed to the site but were denied entry by a cordon of Japanese guards who erected electric fences to keep them out. In an attempt to curtail the fire underground, the Japanese shut off the ventilation and sealed the pit head. Witnesses say that the Japanese did not evacuate the pit fully before sealing it; trapping many Chinese workers underground to suffocate in the smoke.^[2] Thus the actions of the Japanese are blamed for needlessly increasing the death toll. It took workers ten days to remove all the corpses and rubble from the shaft. The dead were buried in a mass grave nearby. Many victims could not be properly identified due to the extent of the burns. The Japanese at first reported the death toll to be just 34.^[1] Initial newspaper reports were short, as little as 40 words, and downplayed the size of the disaster as a minor event. Later the Japanese erected a monument to the dead. This stone gave the number of dead to be 1327.^[3] The true number is believed to be 1,549.^[4] Of this number, 31 were Japanese, the rest Chinese.^[2] The mine continued to be operated by the Japanese until the end of World War II in 1945. Following the Japanese withdrawal, the workers took control of the site. With the liberation after the war, the Soviet Union investigated the accident. They found that only some of the workers died from the gas and coal-dust explosion. The Soviet report states that most deaths were of Carbon Monoxide poisoning due to the closing of ventilation after the initial explosion.^[2]
   
2. 
   1,099 – Courrières mine disaster (Courrières, France, 10 March 1906)
   
3. 
   687 – coal mine (Mitsubishi Hojo, Kyūshū, Japan, 15 December 1914)
   
4. 
   682 – coal mine Laobaidong colliery coal dust explosion, (Datong China, 9 May 1960)
   
5. 
   472 – coal mine (Wankie, Rhodesia, 1972)
   
6. 
   458 – Mitsui Miike Coal Mine disaster- (Mitsui Miike, Ōmuta, Fukuoka, Japan, 9 November 1963)
   
7. 
   439 – Senghenydd Colliery Disaster (Senghenydd, Wales, 1913)
   
8. 
   437 – coal mine (Coalbrook, South Africa, 1960)
   
9. 
   422 – coal mine (New Yubari, Yubari, Hokkaidō, Japan, 28 November 1914)
   
10. 
    405 – coal mine (Bergkamen, West Germany, 1946)
    
11. 
    214 – coal mine (Sunjiawan, Fuxin, Liaoning, China, 15 February 2005)
    
12. 
    181 – coal mine with flooding (Huayuan^{[disambiguation needed]}, Xintai, Shandong, China, August 17, 2007)
    
13. 
    166 – coal mine (Chenjiashan, Tongchuan, Shaanxi, China, 28 November 2004)
    
14. 
    159 – coal mine (Muchonggou, Shuicheng, Guizhou, China, 26 September 2000)
    
15. 
    148 – coal mine (Daping, Tongchuan^{[disambiguation needed]}, Henan, China, 20 October 2004)
    
16. 
    124 – coal mine (Chengzihe, Jixi, Heilongjiang, China, 20 June 2002)
    
17. 
    123 – coal mine (Daxing, Xingning, Guangdong, China, 6 August 2005)
    
18. 
    108 – coal mine (Ulyanovskaya, Novokuznetsk, Kuzbass Siberia, Russia, March 19, 2007)
    
19. 
    105 – coal mine (Ruizhiyuan, Linfen, Shanxi, China, 5 December 2007)
    
20. 
    101 – coal mine (methane explosion) (Zasyadko, Donetsk, Ukraine, 18 November 2007)
    
21. 
    92 – coal mine (Gangzi, Xuzhou, Jiangsu, China, July 22, 2001)
    
22. 
    86 – coal mine (Luling coal mine, Hefei, Anhui, China, 13 May 2003)
    
23. 
    83 – coal mine (Shenlong, Fukang, Xinjiang Uygur, China, 13 July 2005)
    
24. 
    82 – coal mine (Barakova, Krasnodon, Ukraine, 11 March 2000)
    
25. 
    73 – coal mine (San Fernando, Amaga, Antioquia, Colombia, 17 June 2010)^{[citation needed]}
    
26. 
    59 – coal mine (Xishui mine, Shanxi province, China, 20 March 2005)
    
27. 
    59 – coal mine (Bettina, Orlová, Czech Republic, March 26, 1885)
    
28. 
    54 – coal mine (Hlubina, Ostrava, Czech Republic, May 22, 1960)
    
29. 
    54 – coal mine (Františka, Záluží^{[disambiguation needed]}, Czech Republic, , 1860)
    
30. 
    52 – coal mine (Zasyadka, Donetsk, Ukraine, 19 August 2001)
    
31. 
    45 – coal mine (Surran range, Quetta, Pakistan, 21 March 2011)
    
32. 
    29 – coal mine Pike River Mine disaster (Greymouth, New Zealand, November 19, 2010)
    
33. 
    29 – Upper Big Branch mine explosion (Montcoal, West Virginia, 5 April 2010)
    
34. 
    24 – Nanshan Colliery disaster (Shanxi Province, China, 13 November 2006)
    
35. 
    23 – methane explosion in Halemba coal mine (Ruda Śląska Poland 21 November 2006)
    
36. 
    20 – 2009 Handlová mine blast (Handlová, Slovakia, August 10, 2009)
    
37. 
    16 – coal mine (Ningxia Hui, China, 16 October 2008)