The following page is the complete listing from Airplane Disasters, by John Kremer. This file features more than two thousand airplane crashes, near misses, and related accidents organized by date. [Don't read this if you are about to fly! I guarantee that no matter how much you have flown in the past, when you read the entire Airplane Disasters listing, you will think twice before flying again.]

For those of you who would rather read about the positive side of air travel, check out the Fun of Flying Site, which features hundreds of historic airplane anniversaries, heroics, and so on.

Note: According to the Federal Aviation Administration, during the past decade there have been three times that a year went by without a fatality on a commercial plane. More than 90% of airplane crashes have survivors. More people are killed every year by donkeys than by airplane crashes.

Celebrity Air Deaths: http://www.hottimescoolplaces.com/airceleb.htm

January 1

1978: 213 people died when an Air India Boeing 747 crashed and exploded into the sea near Bombay India. The crash was caused by instrument failure.

1991: 34 people were killed when a USAir Boeing 737 crashed on the runway of the Los Angeles, California airport.

1997: A Piper Cherokee clipped a tree and flipped over into a house while trying to land at the Florence, South Carolina airport. Two people on board were able to climb out with few injuries; the other two were seriously injured and hospitalized in critical condition.

1999: In 1998, no passenger died in an accident involving a scheduled U.S. commercial airplane anywhere in the world. The 1998 numbers do not include the September 2nd crash of Swissair Flight 111 off Nova Scotia, which killed 229. While that flight departed from New York bound for Geneva, it did not involve a U.S. carrier. 598 people were killed in general aviation accidents in 1998, including crashes of private and corporate planes. 17 people were also killed in crashes of air taxis.

2007: 12 people out of 102 passengers and crew survived the crash of an Adams Air Boeing 737-400 in the mountains of Sulawesi Island in Indonesia. The plane went down in heavy rain on a flight from Surabya to Manado.

January 2

1920: Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov was born on this date. Although he wrote about flying in space and other technological marvels, Asimov himself refused to travel by airplane. Did he know something we don't?

1997: Reno, Nevada, experienced its worst flooding in 40 years, forcing the closing of its casinos, wedding chapels, government offices, the Mustang brothel, and the Reno-Tahoe International Airport.

1997: The pilot and four passengers of a Cessna 210 died when their plane got caught in a snowstorm and crashed into Cuddy Mountain near Council, Idaho. The four passengers were vacationers who had been stranded in McCall, Idaho, because of flooding.

1997: A twin-engine Piper Aerostar crashed into the Great Dismal Swamp shortly after taking off from the Chesapeake, Virginia airport. All four people aboard the plane were killed.

1999: A single-engine Beechcraft Sierra propeller plane crash landed in a cemetery near Republic Airport outside of East Farmingdale, New York. The pilot and passenger were unhurt but a few gravestones were knocked over.

January 3

1994: When its engine caught fire, a Baikal Air Tupolev-154 plane crashed near Mamony, Siberia. All 124 people aboard were killed. In addition, a farmer on the ground was killed.

1996: A USAir jet bound for Greensboro, North Carolina, had to make an unscheduled landing in Imperial, Pennsylvania, after the pilot noticed that one of the landing wheels was missing. No one was injured in the landing.

1997: A US Air Boeing 757 reported a loss in power in its two engines shortly after leaving Charlotte, North Carolina. The plane returned to the airport without incident.

2004: An Egyptian Boeing 737 carrying 148 French tourists on family holidays crashed into the Red Sea shortly after taking off from the Sharm el-Sheikh airport. The plane, operated by the Flash Airlines charter company, crashed into deep waters. All people aboard the plane were killed in the crash.

January 4

1989: U.S. jet fighters shot down two Libyan planes over the Mediterranean Sea.

1996: Because of a mix-up in flight numbers (two aircraft with the same flight numbers), a Delta jet crossed a runway as it got ready to take off from JFK Airport in New York. The Delta jet crossed in front of an American airliner that was just landing. The two jets came within 1,500 feet of each other. No injuries resulted.

1997: Fifty years after he was shot down over Nazi Germany, the body of American airman Roger True Lane was returned home to be buried (after his bones were discovered by two young Germans looking for metal in a field). He was shot down on December 24, 1944.

January 5

1989: Two French TV journalists were arrested while trying to plant fake bombs on three different airlines at JFK Airport during a security test.

1995: A British Airways Boeing 737 had a close encounter with a brightly lit wedge-shaped craft as it was approaching the airport at Manchester, England. The mysterious craft came within yards of the 737 then veered toward the right side of the plane and disappeared. Air traffic control at the airport reported seeing only one plane in the air at the time -- the Boeing 737.

1996: Six people were indicted on federal charges of trafficking in used and unsafe parts for commercial aircraft. Some of those parts may have made their way into aircraft that was still flying.

1997: The pilot and two passengers were injured when a sightseeing tour plane lost power and crash landed near a Bullhead City, Arizona highway.

1998: American millionaire Steve Fossett abandoned his third attempt to become the first man to fly round the world non-stop in a balloon and landed safely in the southern Russian region of Krasnodar.

1998: Northwest Airlines had to cancel about 100 flights out of the Detroit, Michigan airport when its crews had trouble getting to the airport after a foot of snow fell within 24 hours.

January 6

1960: A National Airlines DC-6B airplane disintegrated at 18,000 feet (above Wilmington, North Carolina) while on a flight from New York to Miami. All 34 people aboard the plane were killed. The explosion was caused by a dynamite bomb, probably brought on board by a passenger who had purchased a large amount of life insurance (and was, thus, suspected of using the bomb to commit suicide).

1996: Because of a power outage from 6:55 a.m. to 7:20 a.m., the Air Route Traffic Control Center in Auburn, Washington, lost contact with planes in its air space, causing delays in takeoffs and landings throughout the Pacific Northwest.

1996: As many as 1,000 people were killed when a Russian-built Antonov crashed into a crowded market at the end of the runway near Knishasa airport.

1998: An American Airlines employee fractured his ribs when the luggage cart he was driving ran into the undercarriage and landing gear of a Boeing 727 that was taxiing toward the runway before takeoff. The driver fell out of his car and was hit by the wheels of the plane.

1998: D.K. Ulrich, a Winston Cup driver, escaped injury when his Cessna Citation 500 jet overshot a runway and crashed into a mobile home park near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He had been attempting to land in heavy fog at the Allegheny County Airport when he lost control of the jet as it landed on the wet runway. One mobile home went up in flames, forcing its occupants to flee for their lives. One of the passengers in the jet experienced broken bones, while the other escaped uninjured.

1999: A Beechcraft Baron BE-58 twin-engine plane crashed near Yamhill, Oregon after narrowly missing a farmhouse. All four people aboard the plane were killed.

January 7

1911: The first bombing experiments from an airplane were carried out near San Francisco, California.

1972: 104 people die when an Iberian Airlines jet crashed into a mountain on the island of Ibiza.

1989: A British Midland Boeing 737 crashed on the Motorway outside London.

1996: A ValuJet DC-9 bounced on landing at the Nashville airport but landed safely on its second attempt. None of the 88 passengers were injured in the incident. The accident occurred because the crew restored circuit breakers before landing that caused the plane's ground spoilers to be deployed which, in turn, caused the plane to suddenly lose altitude.

1997: Robert Martin, an American pilot who sprayed herbicides on Amazon jungle coca fields in Colombia, died in the crash of his T-65 Turbo Thrush airplane.

1997: A Minnesota Air National Guard F-16 jet fighter disappeared from radar and was missing while training with three other jets. The other jets couldn't find the one jet because it was too dark that night.

1997: An American Airlines A-300 Airbus jetliner ran into turbulence as it was flying from Puerto Rico to Philadelphia. As a result, they were forced to make an emergency landing at Kennedy Airport near New York. Four flight attendants and two passengers were hurt in the turbulence. Several flight attendants hit the ceiling as the plane was thrown up and down by the turbulence.

1997: A Bosnian pulled a knife and hijacked an Austrian Airlines MD-87 jet and forced the plane to land in Berlin. The hijacker was successfully subdued after the plane landed. No passenger or crew were injured in the attempt.

1998: Two Air Force pilots escaped serious injury when their F-16s collided during a six-plane intercept training mission at the Hill Air Force Base. One pilot was able to land his plane at Michaels Army Air Field, but the other pilot had to eject before his plane crashed.

1998: Two jets, an American Airlines Boeing 767 and a Delta MD-80 nearly collided over Kennedy Airport during heavy fog as a result of a mistake made by an air traffic controller. The planes were within 100 feet vertically and a half mile laterally at their nearest point.

1999: Shortly after taking off from Luke Air Force Base near Phoenix, Arizona, an F-16 jet fighter crashed. Both pilots ejected safely, but a truck driver on the ground suffered minor injuries when one of the jettisoned fuel tanks hit his pickup. The pilots had ejected two fuel tanks in an attempt to keep the jet airborne.

January 8

1996: A cargo plane crashed into a crowded market in the center of Kinshasa, Zaire. 350 people were killed (mostly women and children), although four Russian crew members did survive the crash as well as a lynch mob that tried to attack them later.

1996: A USAir F-28 jet bound for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, lost cabin pressure and had to make an unscheduled landing at the Charleston, West Virginia airport. No one was hurt.

1997: Richard Bransen and two others had to give up their attempt to fly around the world in a balloon when their balloon crashed in the Sahara Desert on the first day of their flight.

1998: A low-flying Russian military Mi-8 helicopter struck a petrol tanker not far from the Dzhida Airfield near the border with Mongolia but there were no serious injuries.

1998: A pilot ejected safely from his F-16C shortly before it crashed at the Utah Test and Training Range during a simulated bombing run. His jet experienced "some type of catastrophic failure."

1998: The Federal Aviation Administration ordered commercial airlines to check as many as 200 boeing 737s to see if they have been flying with bolts missing from their tails. The concern was prompted by the inspection of a Boeing 737 that had crashed.

2003: A Turkish Airlines British Aerospace RJ 100 passenger jet crashed on approach to the Diyarbakir Airport in Turkey during heavy fog. It landed 40 yards short of the runway. 75 people were killed in the crash. Amazingly, five people escaped without serious injury.

2003: A US Airways Express Beech 1900D turboprop commuter plane crashed and exploded shortly after taking off from Charlotte Douglas Airport in North Carolina. All 21 people aboard were killed. The plane may have lost an engine as it took off, causing it to flip over, and dive to the ground where it clipped a hangar and burst into flames. The crash was the first to involve deaths aboard a passenger or cargo airliner in the U.S. in more than a year. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, it was the third time in a decade that a year went by without a fatality on a commercial plane.

January 9

1995: Newark International Airport was crippled for several hours after construction workers drove two 60-foot steel beams through the main power conduit.

1996: An Aeromed Cessna 401 air ambulance crashed after striking a wooden power pole about a mile southeast of the Spokane, Washington airport. Two crew members and a patient were killed in the crash; one crew member survived.

1997: An American Airlines DC-10 dropped about 300 feet after hitting turbulence over the Pacific Ocean. Ten people were injured, including six who required hospitalization. The pilot made an emergency landing in San Francisco to take care of the injured.

1997: A Comair USA twin engine Embraer EMB-120 turboprop airplane crashed as it approached the Detroit, Michigan airport (probably as the result of icing on the wings and/or propellers). 29 people were killed in the crash. Maureen DeMarco, one of the passengers, was going to attend the funeral of her brother, Brian Scully, who had been killed in a cargo plane crash on December 22nd. Two other passengers were a woman and her 9-month-old son who had been sent tickets by her airman husband to come and visit him up in Alaska.

1998: Richard Graff, co-founder of the American Food and Wine Institute, died when his Cessna crashed into a power pole and greenhouse as he was attempting to land at the Salinas Airport. The plane burst into flames upon crashing.

1998: A Southwest Boeing 737 and two smaller commuter planes almost collided when their radar blips merged into one on radar screens when a proximity locator on one of the planes malfunctioned.

January 10

1997: A small twin-engine commuter plane got up to several hundred feet on taking off from the Bangor, Maine airport before stalling and bumping down on the icy runway. Two out of the eleven people aboard the plane were injured.

1998: A Costa Rican Lacsa jetliner veered off the runway at San Francisco International Airport as it was taking off at full speed. It blew an engine and a tire before coming to rest in a field of mud. No one was hurt in the late night incident. The runway had to be closed for a time, which caused delays of several other international flights.

1998: The nose wheel tire of an Indian Airlines jet burst as the plane landed in Bangalore. No one was hurt in the incident, but the runway had to be closed for some time, thus delaying many in-coming and out-going flights.

1999: A Malaysia Airlines captain aborted a flight to Perth, Australia, and returned to the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur after a rat was spotted on board.

January 11

1945: Four Soviet pilots, who were aboard an American PBY Catalina airplane when it crashed near Nixonton, North Carolina, may have survived the crash and chosen to defect. There are no records of their burial.

1995: A Columbian airliner crashed as it was preparing to land near Cartagena, Columbia. 52 people died in the crash but a 9-year-old girl survived the crash. Her mother had thrown her out of the plane and she had landed on a thick cushion of water lilies.

1996: A single engine plane disappeared on a flight from Longmont, Colorado, to Page, Arizona.

January 12

1953: 14 American servicemen were captured when their B-29 was shot down over China's border with North Korea. Washington was eventually able to negotiate their release.

1996: A Valujet DC-9 slid on ice into a snowbank after landing at the Dulles International Airport near Washington, DC. Nobody aboard was hurt.

1996: While searching for a missing plane, rescuers discovered another single-engine plane, operated by Kempton Air Service, which had landed on top of the 11,000 foot Grand Mesa near Rifle, Colorado. One passenger received minor cuts when the Piper Cherokee was forced to land atop the mesa.

January 13

1969: An SAS DC-8 crashed when the pilots got distracted while approaching the Los Angeles, California airport. 14 people were killed.

1982: An Air Florida Boeing 737 crashed into the 14th Street Bridge in Washington DC, as it tried to take off from National Airport during a snowstorm. After crashing into the bridge, the plane fell into the Potomac River. 78 people were killed in the accident.

1995: Two F-14 jets from the Miramar Naval Air Station crashed into the Pacific Ocean 60 miles southwest of San Diego. All four crew people were rescued.

1997: Two people were killed when their small plane crashed during a snowstorm in the Black Mountain area of Riverside, California, 80 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

1998: An Afghan transport plane crashed in southwestern Pakistan. 51 people died in the crash.

January 14

1969: Twenty-five crew members of the U.S. aircraft carrier "Enterprise" died during maneuvers.

1997: A Delta Airlines jet slid off a snow-covered tarmac at the Salt Lake City, Utah airport. No one was injured in the incident.

January 15

1943: 35 people were killed when a C-54 operated by TWA for the Air Transport Command crashed in the jungle 30 miles from Paramaribo, Suriname (then known as Dutch Guiana). At the time, it was the worst air disaster so far.

1996: A Navy Hornet crashed near El Centro, California when its landing gear failed to operate properly. No one was injured in the crash.

1996: A corporate Mitsubishi MU-2B jet carrying four Coca-Cola bottling executives crashed and burned in a canyon near Malad City, Idaho. All eight people aboard were killed in the crash.

1997: A Sierra Pacific airplane carrying the Purdue basketball team was caught in a winter storm at the Purdue University Airport in West Lafayette, Indiana. While taxiing from the airport terminal in heavy blowing snow, the pilot lost sight of the runway and the plane slid off the tarmac onto the grass and into a snowbank. No one was injured in the incident. The Purdue team deboarded and went to practice while the plane was dug out and readied again for departure.

January 16

1942: Actress Carole Lombard and 21 other people were killed when their plane crashed near Las Vegas, Nevada, as they were returning from a war-bond promotion tour. Carole's death was the first war-related female casualty that the U.S. suffered during World War II. Carole, 33, was best known for such comedies as Nothing Sacred.

1996: While landing off the west coast of Jamaica, musician Jimmy Buffett's seaplane was shot at by police who mistook the plane for one owned by drug traffickers.

1996: The tail stairwell door on a TWA Boeing 727 passenger jet dropped open during flight. Tied to a rope, a crew member reached down and pulled the door close. No one was hurt during the incident.

January 17

1966: A U.S. Air Force B-52 crashed on the Spanish coast after a refueling accident in the air. Four hydrogen bombs fell from the plane, and two of them spilled plutonium over the Palomares area of Spain.

1991: During the Gulf War, Jeffrey Zahn became the first U.S. pilot to be shot down over Iraq.

1996: Two Navy FA-18 jet fighters collided over the desert near Fallon, Nevada. One pilot was killed; the other successfully ejected and survived with minor injuries. Pilot error caused the crash.

1996: Ibrahim Abacha, the eldest son of Nigeria's military ruler, and 14 others were killed when their HS-125 jet crashed in Nigeria.

1997: A small Piper Cherokee crashed into the waters of Lake Winnipesaukee after the pilot and his 71-year-old mother both passed out from carbon monoxide due to a leaky engine. Both died.

January 18

1969: When an engine fire caused the loss of electricals, a United Airlines Boeing 727 crashed on approaching the Los Angeles Airport. 38 people died.

1991: Because of financial problems, Eastern Airlines shut down after 62 years of business.

1995: An ABC Prime Time live segment reported on the dangers of tourist helicopter excursions and raised disturbing questions about the federal government's supervision of sightseeing helicopter companies.

1995: ValuJet maintenance procedure continued to be very weak. According to FAA inspectors, "emergency floor lighting was coming up from the floor with exposed wires in aisle."

1997: A chartered ATL Antilles Airlines flight to Bonaire, an island off Venezuela, was forced to turn back when the cabin filled with smoke shortly after taking off from the Atlanta, Georgia airport. The pilot aborted a second takeoff attempt later due to more smoke. No one was hurt in the incident.

January 19

1995: An X-31 experimental aircraft went out of control and crashed. Apparently an accumulation of ice in or on the unheated pitot-static system of the aircraft provided false airspeed information to the flight control computers thus causing the aircraft to go out of control.

1997: An Israeli Air Force F-15 fighter jet crashed in South Israel. The pilot and navigator ejected safely.

January 20

1996: An Air National Guard F-16 fighter jet crashed near Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico. No one was hurt in the crash.

1997: After hitting a flock of storkcs, an Israeli Air Force F-15 crashed into a cow shed at Kibbutz Revivim. The crew were able to bail out before the jet crashed.

1998: A Beachcraft Baron carrying former Governor Lamar Alexander and three other people was forced to make an emergency landing at Richmond International Airport in Virginia when the crew heard a banging sound in the landing gear which would not deploy.

1999: A Continental Airlines jetliner flying from Tokyo to Honolulu hit severe turbulence, injuring 18 passengers and four flight attendants.

1999: A single-engine Cessna 210 lost a wing and crashed on Sandia Peak outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Three people were killed in the crash.

1999: An Air Force A-10 jet fighter crashed in a gigantic fireball after screaming over the rooftops of homes near Kasoag Lake, 30 miles north of Syracuse, New York. The pilot was able to eject before the jet hit the ground.

January 21

1969: A B-52 crashed shortly after taking off from the Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. The crew had take the plane aloft to check on mechanical difficulties that had been reported on that plane. All six crew men died in the crash, including Major Byron D. Edmonds, the pilot. The crew had recently returned from the Vietnam War only to die in a domestic accident.

January 22

1952: Former Secretary of War Robert Patterson as well 29 others were killed when an airliner hit apartments at Elizabeth, New Jersey. Seven people died on the ground.

1973: A chartered Boeing 707 burst into flames while landing at the Kano Airport in Nigeria. 176 people died, including 5 crew members and 171 Nigerian Moslems returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca.

1997: A jazz club owner was kicked off a plane to Israel after complaining to TWA personnel about a smoking ban on the 11-hour flight. As a result, he arrived three days late to Tel Aviv to visit his dying father, who had by that time lapsed into a coma. He later sued the airline for delaying his arrival.

1997: A Nihon Transocean Air Boeing 737 jet aborted its takeoff at Naha airport in Japan when it experienced engine trouble (unusual vibrations, engine fire, and parts of the engine falling on the runway). No one was injured in the incident.

January 23

1973: A Jordan Air passenger jet crashed at Kano, Nigeria, killing 176 Moslem pilgrims.

1982: A World Airways DC-10 skidded at Boston's Logan Airport when landing in icy weather. Two passengers died in the accident.

1996: Two helicopters pilots from Norfolk, Virginia, were arrested in downtown Naples after accosting a woman and stealing her purse. They claimed to have been entrapped by the woman and her male companion.

1997: A helicopter hit the top of a 300-foot radio tower and crashed into the everglades. All four aboard the copter were killed in the crash.

January 24

1966: 117 people died when an Air India Boeing 707 jet crashed on Mont Blanc near the border between France and Italy.

1997: When a passenger discovered a bomb threat note on the plane, a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 flight from New Orleans to Orlando had to make an unscheduled stop at the Pensacola Regional Airport. No bomb was found. No one was injured.

January 25

1985: An open engine compartment door caused a Galaxy Electra to crash on taking off from the Reno, Nevada airport. 70 people died in the crash.

1990: When an Avianca Boeing 707 ran out of fuel as it approached New York City, it crashed at Cove Neck, New York. 73 of the 159 people aboard were killed.

January 26

1972: Stewardess Vesna Vulovic fell out of an airplane after it exploded in mid-air and survived a 10,160 meter fall without a parachute. See The Free Fall Research page for more details: http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/wreckage.html.

1996: A USAir airplane was powering up to leave the airport when its right engine caught fire. No one was hurt.

January 27

1996: While landing in the rain, two commuter jets skidded off a runway at the Hartsfield Atlanta Airport and got stuck in the mud. A ValuJet DC-9 ended up mired in the mud about 50 feet beyond the end of the runway, while an Atlantic Southwest jet skidded off the side of the runway. No passengers were hurt.

January 28

1986: Astronauts Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Michael Smith, Gregory Jarvis, and Francis Scobee were killed when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded within seconds after its launch. Also killed was Christa McAuliffe (38), a teacher who was going aboard as a civilian. The explosion was caused by a defective O ring which allowed fuel to leak and ignite.

1994: The Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C. was closed for several hours after a ValuJet airliner slid off an icy runway and skidded into the grassy area. No passengers were hurt.

1998: Air Force One got stuck in the mud while preparing to taxi up a runway in Illinois.

January 29

1953: Five Americans were shot down in their B-29 bomber during the Korean War. None of them were ever seen again, although there had been news that they were alive but captured by the North Koreans.

1997: The nose gear of an Air China jumbo jet broke as the plane was taxiing to the terminal at Kennedy International Airport just moments after landing. When the nose gear broke, the plane skidded off the runway and into the muddy strip between the landing runways. No one was injured in the incident.

1998: One soldier was killed while taking part in the Big Drop training exercise near Fort Bragg, North Carolina. During the exercise, 2,900 paratroopers jumped at the same time, thus making the exercise one of the biggest parachute drops since World War II.

2000: One of the engines shut down as a Concorde jet approached Heathrow airport near London, England. The plane landed safely.

2002: 92 people were killed when a Boeing 727 operated by Ecuadorean TAME airline crashed in mountains in Columbia.

January 30

1911: The destroyer "Terry" made the first water recovery of a downed pilot when James McCurdy was forced to land his plane in the Gulf of Mexico about 10 miles from Havana, Cuba.

1974: A Pan Am Boeing 707 crashed on Pago Pago due to windshear. 94 people died.

1996: An F-14 Tomcat fighter crashed just after taking off from the Nashville Airport. The pilot and his partner were killed as well as three people who lived in the house that the plane crashed into. It was the 30th crash of an F-14 since 1991.

2000: For the second time in two days, a supersonic Concorde airliner had to make an emergency landing at Heathrow Airport outside London, England. A cockpit alarm had warned of a fire in the rear cargo hold, but after the plane landed engineers were unable to find any problems.

2000: A Kenya Airways Airbus 310 crashed into the sea shortly after taking off from the airport at Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Ten of the 179 people on board the plane were fished out alive from the Atlantic Ocean. The rest died.

January 31

1957: During the final test flight of the new Douglas DC-7B airliner over the San Fernando Valley, the plane ran almost head-on into a U.S. Air Force F-89J Scorpion jet fighter which was on a similar test flight. The pilot of the Air Force jet died as the aircraft plummeted into La Tuna Canyon in the Verdugo Mountains. Having lost its left wing, the DC-7B went into a high speed dive, began breaking up about 700 feet about the ground, and crashed into a Pacoima, California churchyard, killing all four crew members. The plane exploded into hundreds of flaming pieces that flew across the adjacent junior high school playground where three students were killed and 74 more injured.

1996: A power loss at Pittsburgh International Airport caused radar screens at the control tower to go blank and for lights, telephones, and radios to fail for six minutes.

2000: An Alaska Airlines MD-80 jet carrying 88 people crashed on its way from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico to San Francisco, California. It went down near Anacapa Island 20 miles off shore of Los Angeles. No one survived the crash. Pilots reported problems with the stabilizer trim and asked to be diverted to Los Angeles shortly before the plane plummeted into the ocean.

February 1

1966: Nicholas Piantanida died during his descent after setting a new balloon flight record.

1991: A USAir Boeing 737 jet landed on top of a mis-placed Skywest Farchild Metroliner commuter plane on a runway at the Los Angeles International Airport. 34 people died in the incident; 24 others were injured.

1996: As it landed at the Nashville Airport, a ValuJet DC-9 jet blew the two right main-gear tires. The jet's right wing came to rest on the runway, but all 75 passengers were safely evacuated.

1997: The Federal Aviation Administration began a new FAA policy to make public enforcement actions in the safety and security area that seek civil penalties of $50,000 or more as well as major regulatory actions such as the revocation of flying certificates.

1997: A father, mother, and 1-year-old daughter died when their small plane crashed on a glacier south of Mount Mckinley, Alaska. They ran out of fuel after getting lost.

1998: An Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter crashed in the mountains of Colorado during a routine training mission. All six soldiers aboard were rescued, two with serious injuries.

February 2

1962: Sixteen people died when a C-130 military transport crashed on the north side of Evansville, Indiana. Five crew members of the Kentucky Air National Guard airplane plus eleven people on the ground were killed.

1997: A Northwest Airlines DC-9 jetliner skidded off the runway and into a snowbank at Grand Forks International Airport as it landed. No one was injured in the incident, but two passengers were hurt when they slid on the tarmac as they walked to the terminal.

1998: A Philippines Cebu Pacific Air DC-9 jetliner crashed into a mountain while on a flight from Manila to the southern Mindanao Island. 104 people were aboard the plane when it crashed. Everyone died.

February 3

1959: The Day The Music Died. Rock Hall of Famers Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson), and Ritchie Valens as well as the pilot died when their plane crashed just outside Clear Lake, Iowa, during a stormy winter night. Holly, 22, was famous for many hits including "Peggy Sue." The Big Bopper, 29, had one big hit, "Chantilly Lace." And Valens, 18, was best known for his hit, "La Bamba."

1998: A TVA helicopter stringing an electric power line struck and killed a worker on a 100-foot-tall utility pole. The helicopter then fell to the ground and crashed, thus killing two others, a pilot and a utility worker. Two others in the helicopter survived the crash, one in critical condition.

1998: Three mortar shells fired from a Holiday Inn parking lot struck a car park in front of the cargo area of Narita International Airport in Tokyo, Japan. One airport worker was wounded in the attack. As a result, security for the Winter Olympics in Nagano was tightened. Note that most foreign athletes arriving for the games came through the airport.

1998: Twenty skiers were killed when a U.S. military plane on a training mission hit cable car lines at the Cermis ski resort in northeast Italy. The skiers had been traveling up the mountain in a cable car which plunged 650 feet when the cable line was severed by the plane. It was the second worst cable car accident on record. No one on the ground or in the plane were hurt in the incident.

2005: Kam Air Boeing 737 flight crashes during heavy snowstorms on a high mountainside near the Afghan capital of Kabul. All 104 people on board are killed.

February 4

1966: When the All-Nippon Airways 727 crashed near the Haneda Airport in Japan, 133 people were killed.

1996: 22 people were killed when a Colombian cargo plane caught fire shortly after taking off from the Asuncion Airport in Paraguay and crashed into a suburban neighborhood. Among the people killed were seven children playing volleyball. Seven houses were destroyed in the crash.

1996: When, in November 1991, a passenger began having a heart attack over the Atlantic Ocean, Lufthansa airlines continued on to Frankfurt, Germany, rather than returning to the states to allow the passenger, Leonard Krys, to get proper medical attention. Krys was healthy when the flight took off from Miami, Florida, but began having severe chest pains as the airplane was passing over the coast of Georgia. On February 4, 1996, a judge ruled that Lufthansa pay $2.7 million in damages to Krys, who had suffered permanent damage to his heart as a result of the attack.

1997: Two airmen were injured after ejecting from an Air Force F-16D jet fighter when their attempt to make an emergency landing at a small airstrip failed.

1997: 73 Israeli soldiers were killed when two CH-53 military helicopters collided as they flew into the south Lebanon buffer zone.

February 5

1918: Stephen Thompson became the first American pilot to down an enemy airplane.

1982: Laker Airways went bankrupt, owing $351 million.

1996: A Delta Air Lines 757 passenger jet slid off an icy taxiway at the Portland Airport. While the runway was closed for several hours, thus delaying many flights, no people were hurt during the incident.

1997: Two National Guard F-16 jets flew so close to a Nations Air jetliner that they set off its proximity alarm, thus causing the pilot to take evasive action twice, once diving 4,000 feet, then rising 4,000 feet. Two days later there was another incident involving four Guard jets coming close to another commercial airliner.

February 6

1958: Seven members of the Manchester United soccer team died in an airplane crash.

1992: A Lockhead C-130 military transport on training maneuvers crashed into the rear of a restaurant and hotel in Evansville, Indiana. Sixteen people were killed, including five crew members and eleven people on the ground. It was the second time in 4 1/2 years that a military plane crashed into an Indiana hotel.

1994: Army Sgt. First Class Dana Bowman lost his legs as he hit his partner Jose Aguillon while they were practicing a skydiving trick known as the Diamond Track. Aguillon died of massive internal injuries as a result of the mid-air collision above Yuma, Arizona.

1996: Two Picassos and a Pissarro worth $15 million were stolen from a storage area at Kennedy Airport while being stored overnight before being released by customs.

1996: After failing to gain enough altitude, a Cessna 500 Citation smashed into a mountain near Ensenada, Mexico. Six Baja California state officials and two pilots were killed in the crash.

1996: An American Trans Air Boeing 727 carrying 180 people had to be evacuated after an auxiliary power unit began smoking as the plane left the boarding gate at the Indianapolis, Indiana airport. No one was injured.

1996: A chartered 757 jetliner carrying German tourists crashed into shark-infested waters off the Dominican Republic. 189 people died in the crash.

1997: Quick thinking, used coffee, soda, and urine helped to save a small plane after its hydraulic fluid leaked out. Three golfers on their way from Ogden, Utah, to Mesquite, Nevada, discovered that their landing gear wouldn't work and so returned to the Ogden airport. A controller at the airport suggested that they find the hydraulic fuel reservoir and dump in any liquid they could find. After pouring in some coffee and soda, the hydraulics still wouldn't work. But, after passing a cup around, the men gathered enough pee to complete filling the reservoir. After landing safely, the men jumped out of the plane and kissed the ground.

1998: Two U.S. Marine F-18 jet fighters collided in mid-air and crashed into the Persian Gulf as they were returning to the aircraft carrier George Washington. One of the two pilots was killed.

February 7

1997: Four National Guard fighter jets flew past an American Eagle civilian aircraft flying near Maryland, the second narrow incident between National Guard jets and civilian aircraft in several days.

1997: Two Air Force F-16 jets, flying out of a military training area without authorization, came too close to an American Airlines passenger jet over the skies of Clovis, New Mexico.

1997: An Air Force F-16 jet flew too close to a Northwest Airlines Airbus passenger jet near Palacios, Texas. This fourth incident in three days caused the Air Force to suspend all training flights over the Gulf of Mexico and the East Coast.

1997: A small twin-engine plane crashed on a long, par 5 hole at a golf course near the 20th Century Fox studios where O.J. Simpson was playing golf. The two people aboard the plane were injured in the crash which crumpled the nose and right wing of the plane.

February 8

1965: When an Eastern DC-7B crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near Jones Beach, New Jersey, 84 people were killed.

1989: 144 people were killed when a chartered Boeing 707 filled with Italian tourists crashed in the Azores.

1993: An Iran Air Tours chartered Tupolev aircraft crashed after colliding with a Sukhoi military plane over Tehran, Iran. All 132 passengers and crew on the charter were killed; so, too, were the pilot and co-pilot of the military plane.

1996: Navy fighter pilot Richard Ryon was killed when his F-5E jet crashed in the Nevada dessert.

1996: The 1996 Aviation Safety Plan was announced. This plan was designed to prevent air accidents by having federal regulators and the aviation industry cooperate in gathering information and improve training.

1997: Two people died when an Air Sunshine commuter plane crashed in the Virgin Islands.

February 9

1992: A Gambian Convair 640 chartered by Club Mediterranean crashed minutes before landing at Cap Skirring in Senegal. 30 people were killed and 26 wounded in the accident.

1997: A Marine F/A-18 Delta Hornet jet crashed into the Yellow Sea near Osan, Korea. The two crew members were lost at sea.

1998: The pilot of a United Airlines jetliner avoided hitting a Southwest Airlines plane by hitting the brakes at 160 mph and swerving to a taxiway at Ontario International Airport in California. No one was hurt in the incident, but the United flight was cancelled. The Southwest flight took off as scheduled.

February 10

1998: A man was arrested after a 10-year-old boy sought help from another passenger when the man began fondling him. About 30 minutes into an America West flight from Phoenix to Atlanta, the man approached the boy, sat down next to him (the boy's parents were seated elsewhere in the plane), and began to fondle the boy. The man was arrested shortly after the plane landed and was charged with a federal crime since the incident occurred on a plane.

February 11

1993: An Ethiopian student hijacked a Lufthansa airliner and forced it to fly to New York City. He surrendered peacefully once in the United States.

1996: An Aerocommander AC-50 twin-engine airplane crashed into a marsh near Manati, Puerto Rico. Three people died in the crash.

1998: The pilot of a Beechcraft Bonanza was killed when it collided with a National Guard helicopter that was returning to Stockton after aiding flood victims in Monterey. The accident occurred in a rugged area southeast of San Jose, California.

1998: A Continental Boeing 727 jet nearly collided with a Northwest DC-9 as it was about to take off from the Newark Airport in New Jersey. The Northwest plane had stopped with its tail still hanging over the runway when the Continental jet had been cleared for takeoff. Only an alert Continental pilot who aborted the takeoff saved the two planes from colliding.

1999: A Northwest Airlines Boeing 757 was preparing to take off from the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport when it knocked over a de-icing truck, injuring one worker. The truck driver was not hurt.

February 12

1963: A Northwest 720 was thrown off by windshear as it climbed out from the Miami, Florida airport. 43 people died in the crash.

1994: The captain of a ValuJet allowed his aircraft to descend through the assigned altitude of 12,000 feet. Later, he did the same thing at 7,000 feet. An FAA inspector on board at the time had to remind the pilots that they were not following procedure.

1996: A Haiti Air Express airplane crashed as it took off from the Port-au-Prince airport. At least 9 of the 14 people aboard were killed in the crash.

1998: When fire broke out in an engine on a Delta Airlines jet at Ronald Reagon Washington National Airport, all passengers were evacuated down the plane's emergency chute. No one was hurt in the incident.

1998: A man rented a small airplane in Chicago and flew it to Tampico, Mexico where he abandoned the plane before proceeding on the ground into Honduras. Later, on March 21st, the man was captured in Honduras and turned over to U.S. authorities.

2002: An Iran Air Tupolev 154 crashed in the mountains of west Iran, killing all 117 people aboard the plane.

February 13

February 14

1975: Congressman Jerry Pettis died in a plane crash.

1997: Five people died in a small airplane crash near Farmington, New Mexico.

1998: Minor Judson "Buddy" Ward, former president of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, died when his single-engine Piper struck power lines and crashed in a grapefruit grove west of St. Lucie, Florida.

February 15

1961: The entire U.S. figure skating team of 18 died when a Belgian Sabena 707 crashed near Brussels. 72 passengers were killed as well as a farmer on the ground.

1970: When a Dominican DC-9 crashed into the sea after taking off from the Santo Domingo airport, 102 people died.

1996: When a Turkish military helicopter crashed into the Aegean Sea, at least nine men were injured.

February 16

1914: The first airplane flight took off between Los Angeles and San Francisco, California.

1995: A Marine Corps captain was killed in a training accident when his AB-8B Harrier jump-jet crashed in eastern North Carolina near the Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station. It was the third crash of a Cherry Point-based Harrier in six months.

1998: A Taiwanese China Airlines Airbus A-300 crashed in fog at Taipei's airport. All 196 people aboard the plane were killed, plus seven people on the ground. The crash set homes afire, injuring a number of people.

February 17

1953: During the Korean War, baseball great Ted Williams was shot down over Korea. While his plane crashed, he escaped without injury.

1997: Just after a Continental Airlines jet landed at Newark International Airport in New Jersey, its nose gear collapsed. None of the 146 people aboard the plane were hurt in the incident. The airport closed for about 11 minutes to remove the plane and passengers before resuming landings.

1998: Two flight attendants were injured when a Delta jetliner hit rough air shortly before landing at Lehigh Valley International Airport in Allentown, Pennsylvania. None of the passengers were hurt.

1998: Members of the British rock band Oasis smoked, swore, and threw objects at passengers during a Cathay Pacific flight Hong Kong, China to Perth, Australia. The drunken band members refused to stop smoking when requested by flight attendants, and their bad behavior continued throughout the seven-and-a-half hour flight.

1998: Stuart Matthews, president of the Flight Safety Foundation, announced that unless major improvements are made in aviation safety within the next fifteen years, a major air disaster could occur every week. As he said, "The often quoted 'one major accident a week somewhere in the world' is certainly a very real possibility."

February 18

1994: A China Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 was hijacked to Taiwan by businessman Lin Wenqiang. Lin, who brought along his foster mother, his wife and two sons, was sentenced to nine years in jail in Taiwan.

1996: An F-14D Tomcat jet fighter crashed into the Pacific Ocean during routine flight exercises off the southern California coast. Two crew members were killed in the crash.

1998: For the first time ever, an onboard defibrillator was used aboard a domestic U.S. flight to save a passenger's life. Although the American Airlines jet was still at the gate, the man could easily have died if a defibrillator had not been immediately available. Robert Giggey, the passenger, had dashed to make his flight, then collapsed onboard the plane before it took off.

1998: An Air Force B-1B bomber crashed in rural western Kentucky during a routine training mission. All four crew members aboard the plane survived by bailing out just before the plane crashed in a ball of fire. The resulting debris scattered as far as Mattoon, a small town five miles from the crash site.

1998: A six-seat Beechcraft plane ran off the runway of the Buffalo, New York airport as it attempted to take off in a rain shower. No one was hurt in the incident. New York Lt. Governor Betsy McCaughey Ross was one of the three passengers aboard the plane. She made the return trip to Rochester via a car.

1998: A Navy UH-1N helicopter crashed into a rugged canyon in Sequoia National Forest during a routine search and rescue training mission. Five crew members died in the crash.

February 19

1985: Two people were seriously injured when a China Airlines Boeing 747 crashed at the San Francisco airport due to engine failure.

1985: 148 people were killed when a Spanish jetliner crashed into Mount Oiz while approaching the airport at Bilbao, Spain.

1996: Sabateurs slashed the inflatable pads used to prevent ice buildup on a private Cessna. As a result, ten people died when the plane went down near the town of Freilassing, Germany.

1996: A Continental Airlines jet skidded on its belly after its landing gear collapsed during a landing at Houston's Intercontinental Airport. No passengers or crew were seriously injured although one man was hospitalized with back pain. The pilot and co-pilot were fired a few days later because they had failed to turn on a hydraulic pump that controls flaps and landing gear.

1996: A helicopter hovering over a power line tower near DeWeese, Nebraska, suddenly dipped, hit the tower, and crashed. The pilot and the worker he had just dropped off at the top of the tower both died in the crash.

1996: A British Royal Air Force Harrier jet crashed shortly before landing near Lincolnshire. The pilot ejected safely. It was the sixth warplane lost in five weeks by the British.

2003: An Iranian military Antonov airliner crashed in the mountains of southeastern Iran, killing all 302 members of the Revolutionary Guards aboard the plane. It was Iran's worst plane crash ever.

February 20

1942: Lieutenant E.H. O'Hare single-handedly shot down five Japanese bombers.

1996: When a fire broke out in the equipment bay as an American Airlines jet was about to leave the departure gate at Kennedy Airport, passengers and crew evacuated the plane by sliding down escape chutes. About 30 people were injured as they collided on the escape chutes. A similar incident occurred on the same day at the Portland, Oregon, airport.

1996: For the second day in a row, a Continental Airlines jet had a landing mishap. In this case, Continental Flight 1156 overshot the runway at Washington's National Airport and became mired in the mud about 300 feet from the Potomac River.

1997: Two airlines had trouble with their planes at the Des Moines, Iowa airport. Details unavailable.

1998: An Alaska Airlines Boeing MD-80 returned to the gate of the Palm Springs, California airport after the crew detected an hydraulic leak. Seven passengers were taken to hospitals after getting sick from breathing the fumes of the hydraulic fluid.

2003: A terrorist bomb at a Philippines airport near the city of Cotabato in central Mindanao killed one soldier and wounded six civilians. That attack was blamed on the MILF, a Moslem terrorist group.

February 21

1973: Israeli fighter planes shot down a Libyan Airlines Boeing 727 jet over the Sinai Desert. More than 100 people were killed in the crash. Five people survived the crash.

1995: A lightning bolt struck an MD-80 airliner as it departed the gate at the Phoenix airport. While no passengers were hurt and the plane made its scheduled trip to Chicago, three airline

workers outside the aircraft were seriously injured and had to be hospitalized.

1997: Two Continental Airlines Boeing 737 jetliners had to make emergency landings at the Cleveland, Ohio airport after developing problems with their hydraulic systems.

1997: The FAA announced today that 1,070 people died in aircraft accidents in 1996. 631 were killed in private planes, the rest in commercial flights.

1997: NASA announced today that 9,157 cases were recorded since 1988 where two aircraft came closer to each other than the legal separation zone. About 1,000 such incidents are reported every year.

February 22

1973: Israeli fighter planes shot down a Libyan commercial airliner with 106 people aboard. All aboard the commercial airliner died in the incident.

1994: Two aviators bailed out of their F-14D Tomcat jet fighter about 900 miles southwest of San Diego. The jet crashed into the ocean; the two crew members survived with minor injuries.

1996: A Navy F-14A Tomcat jet fighter crashed in the Persian Gulf but the pilot and radar intercept officer were able to eject safely. It was the third F-14 crash in less than a month.

1998: Two people died when their private plane crashed in the snow-covered San Gorgonio Mountains in California.

February 23

1995: A British Midland Boing 737 had to make an emergency landing shortly after taking off from the Nottingham, England airport. It's engines lost nearly all their oil. The plane was able to land safely at Luton airport 25 miles north of London.

1998: A small private jet went off the runway at Van Nuys Airport in California and end up in the mud by the side of the runway.

February 24

1959: While flying an American Airlines jetliner from Newark, New Jersey, to Detroit, Michigan, pilot Peter Killian reported seeing three flying saucers cruising alongside his plane. Two other pilots in nearby planes reported similar sightings, but the government dismissed his claims.

1989: Nine passengers were sucked out of the back of a plane and fell to their deaths in the Pacific Ocean when a 40 foot hole blew open in the fuselage of a United Airlines Boeing 747 flying 100 miles south of Hawaii. 27 other passengers were injured in the accident resulting from a cargo door separation. Months after the incident, passengers, crew and the Capt. started talking about a strange occurence. Apparently they all felt the presence of angels who helped to hold the plane in the air. Some describe looking out the window and seeing a hand holding up the wing.

1996: A Navy EA-6-B Prowler jet crashed into the ocean during a carrier exercise. Two members of the crew were killed and two others injured when the pilot apparently blacked out during a routine maneuver.

1996: Cuban government fighter planes shot down two small aircraft belonging to an exile group flying off the coast of Havana, Cuba.

1999: After a mid-air explosion, a China Southwest Airlines TU-154 jet crashed in a field south of Shanghai in China's Zhejiang province. All 61 people aboard died in the crash.

February 25

1964: An Eastern Airlines DC-8 crashed upon taking off from the New Orleans, Louisiana airport. 58 people died in the crash.

1996: A bomb threat forced a Viasa DC-10 jet bound for Rome to return to the Simon Bolivar International Airport at Caracus, Venezuela. No bomb was found, so the flight continued on to Rome the next day.

1998: A woman returning from Mexico was bitten by a scorpion while passing through customs at JFK International Airport in New York. The scorpion had apparently hitched a ride in her coat as she was leaving Mexico. It was the first scorpion bit case ever treated by New York City's poison control center.

1998: A police officer and gardener were killed when a police helicopter crash-landed on the grounds of a Mexico City police academy. The two helicopter crew members were seriously injured in the crash.

1998: Salt Lake City International Airport had to close down after El Nino dumped 26 inches of snow on the foothills of Salt Lake City, Utah. The airport was closed for more than six hours, the longest stretch since 1970.

1998: Claiming to have a bomb stuffed in a teddy bear, a hijacker on a mission from God seized a Turkish Airlines jetliner and demanded to be flown to Iran. Passengers eventually tackled the man and subdued him. No one was hurt in the incident.

February 26

1996: When a Sudanese military plane crashed just minutes before reaching the Khartoum airport, all 91 people aboard were killed.

1998: A US Airways Fokker 100 jetliner was struck by lightning twice as it approached Birmingham International Airport in Alabama. The lightning caused it to lose hydraulic power so the plane was forced to land without using its nose gear. Nonetheless, it landed safely with no passengers injured, althought it did skid into the mud.

February 27

1998: A Mission Aviation Cessna 185 crashed in a mountainous region of Indonesia when its engine failed. The pilot, missionary Daniel Smith, was rescued three days later when cloud cover dissipated long enough for a helicopter to get close enough to pick him up.

1998: A 13-year-old girl died a week after a single-engine Piper Arrow piloted by her father crashed on this date. The plane hit some power lines and crashed as the father was attempting an emergency landing at Metcalf Field in Walbridge, Ohio, after the plane lost power.

February 28

1966: Two astronauts, Charles Bassett II and Elliot See, Jr., died when their T-38 jet crashed near St. Louis, Missouri.

1994: In the first NATO military action in the Bosnia War, American fighter planes shot down four of six Bosnian jets operating in a no-fly zone.

1995: Denver's new airport finally opened -- after 16 months of delays and $3.2 billion in budget overruns.

1996: A ValuJet DC-9 rolled off a runway after landing at the Savannah, Georgia airport. All passengers were evacuated safely.

1997: An American West Express commuter plane made an emergency landing at the Farmington, New Mexico airport after smoke billowed into the cockpit and a windshield cracked.

1997: The Federal Aviation Administration opened a dedicated web site for airline safety data, including material such as accident and incident data.

February 29

1996: A Fawcett Boeing 737 crashed into a hillside outside Arequipa, Peru, after a faulty turbine on its left wing burst into flame. 117 passengers and 6 crew members were killed in the crash. It was the worst air disaster in Peruvian history. The Boeing 737 was one of 186 Boeing 737 planes (out of 2,500 in existence) that have crashed.

1996: A Marine Corps pilot parachuted safely from his AV-8B Harrier jet after it exploded in mid-air as the jet was on its way to the Chocolate Mountain Gunnery Range in California. It was the second crash in five months that involved a Marine jet from the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, Arizona.

March 1

1962: An American Airlines Boeing 707 plunged into Jamaica Bay as it was taking off from Idlewild Airport (now known as Kennedy Airport). 95 people were killed in the crash caused by a broken rudder.

1997: Baggage handlers at the San Jose, California Airport spotted the image of a handgun as luggage passed by an x-ray scanner. Unfortunately, they lost track of the bag and had to close down the entire departure concourse until they found the bag. It contained a toy pistol.

1997: One person died and three were injured when a small twin-engine plane crashed into an empty field as it was approaching the Salt Lake International Airport in Utah.

1998: An Israeli Air Force F-15D jet hit an antenna on Mount Eval during a routine training flight. The two crew members died when the plane crashed into a nearby mountain.

March 2

1981: Three Pakistanis hijacked a Pakistan International Airlines plane and forced it to land in Afghanistan and then later in Syria. After Pakistan agreed to free 54 political prisoners, the hijackers left the plane on March 14th.

1994: A Continental airliner crashed at Laguardia Airport in New York City.

1998: A Cessna 303 plane with a two adults and four children crashed in the high desert area of Washington County while on a sightseeing tour. All six people were killed in the crash.

March 3

1953: The first fatal crash of a commercial jet plane occurred when a Canadian Pacific Comet crashed near Karachi, Pakistan. Eleven people died.

1974: When a Turkish Airlines DC-10 crashed after taking off from Orly Airport in Paris, France, 346 people died. It was one of the ten deadliest crashes in aviation history.

1991: A United Airlines Boeing 737 crashed in Colorado Springs, Colorado, due to freak winds. 25 people were killed in the crash.

March 4

1998: Eleven people were injured, seven hospitalized, when an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 hit severe turbulence just outside Reno, Nevada. The plane diverted to the Reno Airport for an emergency landing to take care of the injured. The plane had been on a flight from Seattle, Washington, to Las Vegas, Nevada.

1998: A twin-engine Piper Apache 23 crashed into the Brookside Lane apartment complex in Hillsborough, New Jersey. The pilot and passenger were killed. Fortunately, no one in the apartment complex was killed or injured.

2003: A powerful bomb ripped through a packed shelter outside an airport in the southern Philippines, killing 19 people (including one American missionary) and spraying 144 others with shards of metal and glass. MILF terrorists were blamed for the incident.

March 5

1963: Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas, Hawkshaw Hawkins, and the pilot were all killed when their plane crashed near Camden, Tennessee. Cline, 31, was famous for her country hit, "Crazy." Copas and Hawkins were Grand Ole Opry stars.

1966: 124 people were killed when a BOAC Boeing 707 crashed on Mount Fiji in Japan.

1980: On March 5, 1980, in Airplane, the movie, Ted Striker brought Flight 209 into Chicago after the plane lost all its crew.

1997: An American Airlines MD-Super 80 jetliner skidded off the runway as it landed at Hopkins International Airport in Cleveland, Ohio. No serious injuries were reported among the 103 passengers and six crew members.

1998: The pilot of an Airpac Airlines Piper Chieftain PA-31 died when her light cargo plane crashed into the slopes of Mount Burdell in Marin County, California.

1999: The movie, Pushing Tin, premiered. The movie charts the dangerous antics of two air traffic controllers. Watch it as an in-flight movie.

March 6

1997: Two jetliners, a U.S. Airways Boeing 737 and a Delta Boeing 757, came too close too each other as the one was landing and the other was taking off from La Guardia Airport in New York City. An air traffic controller had allowed them to come within one mile of each other, thus causing the automated collision avoidance alarm to sound in both aircraft. The U.S. Airways pilot adjusted his course slightly to correct the problem.

1998: Radiologist Ralph Boyd died when his single-engine kit plane crashed off State Road 54 in Pasco County, Florida, shortly after taking off from the Tampa Bay Executive Airport.

1998: A U.S. Navy UH-60B Seahawk anti-submarine helicopter crashed near Lake Silverwood in the San Bernardino moutnains northeast of Los Angeles, California. All five crew members were killed.

1998: Six people were injured when a Delta Boeing 757 ran into turbulence in the midst of severe thunderstorms over Louisiana. The plane was on a flight from Los Angeles to Tampa.

1999: A Delta Air Lines Boeing 757 was forced to make an emergency landing at the Greenville, South Carolina airport after smoke filled the cabin and the pilot reported oil pressure problems.

1999: Also a Continental Express airplane returned to Cleveland's Hopkins International Airport when smoke appeared in the cockpit. The smoke was caused by de-icing fluid which got into the air conditioning system.

2003: Air Algerie experienced its first airplane crash when a Boeing 737 passenger jet crashed on taking off from the Tamanrasset, Algeria airport. After one of its engines caught fire, the plane crashed at the end of the runway, slid into the airport's perimeter fence and burst into flames. More than 100 people were killed. One person, a young Algerian soldier, survived.

March 7

1996: Five people died when two small planes collided over Flagler Beach, Florida.

1997: One person had to be taken to the hospital after smoke came through the ventilation system and filled a Continental Airlines MD-80 jet that was about to take off from the Newark, New Jersey airport. The oil in the ventilation system overheated and caused the smoke.

1998: The Dublin, Ireland airport shut down when fire fighteres backed the Ryanair baggage handlers in a labor dispute. The airport was scheduled to reopen the next day.

2007: A Garuda Boeing 737-400 jetliner burst into flames and shot off the runway when it landed at Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The jet apparently was going to fast as it landed and overshot the runway by 300 meters. 21 passengers and 1 crew member died in the incident.

March 8

1996: A Viasa Boeing 727 was approaching Simon Bolivar Airport in Caracas, Venezuela, when its collision warning system told the pilot to climb immediately. The pilot did -- just in time. He watched as an Air France Airbus just taking off dived to avoid a collision. No one was hurt in the incident. Commercial jet crashes occur nine times more often in Latin America than the United States.

1997: Jeff Lyons, while flying a small recreational plane, ran over his dog as he landed at the Whitesburg, Georgia airport. Jazz, the four-year-old golden retriever, suffered a broken leg and a gash on his back but was expected to recover.

1998: The co-pilot of an American Airlines flight from Dallas-Fort Worth to Ontario, California, died of a heart attack shortly after taking off. The plane made an emergency landing at Lubbock Airport to de-plane his body.

1998: A DC-10 headed for Newark, New Jersey, had to be evacuated just before taking off from the Manchester, England airport after a small fire broke out in the rear engine and fuel began to leak from that engine. Two passengers had to be taken to the hospital, one with a neck injury, the other with a back problem.

March 9

1967: A TWA DC-9 collided in mid-air over Ohio with a private plane due to air traffic control problems. 25 people were killed in the collision.

1996: A helicopter intended for the White House fleet crashed at a private Connecticut airport during one of its test flights. The crash was caused by a faulty part made by a subcontractor.

1998: When an Ansett Airbus A320 jetliner lost cabin pressure, the crew put the plane into a 22,000-foot dive to restore pressure. Passengers had to pull on their emergency oxygen masks but the plane was able to land safely at the Melbourne, Australia airport. No passengers were injured.

March 10

1996: Six Hells Angels killed a member of a rival gang at the airport in Copenhagen, Denmark.

1998: Actor Lloyd Bridges, who started in the movie, Airplane!, died of natural causes.

1998: Air Force One disappeared from radar screens for 24 seconds as the plane passed near Kennedy International Airport. President Cliinton was on the way to Connecticut at the time. Controllers never lost radio contact with the plane.

1998: An Egyptian cargo aircraft crashed near Mombasa Airport in Kenya after hitting an airport light tower as it was taking off. All six crew members were killed. Two people on the ground were injured by flying debris.

March 11

1997: One of the engines on the plane carrying Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe caught fire just as the plane took off from Shannon Airport in Dublin, Ireland. The fire was brought under control when that engine was shut off, and the plane was able to land safely a few minutes later.

1998: A Delta Air Lines from Atlanta slid off the runway into the mud at Hopkins International Airport in Cleveland, Ohio. No one was hurt in the incident.

1998: A fuel truck ran into the wing of a U.S. Airways Fokker 100 jetliner as it was backing out of the gate at Philadelphia International Airport in Pennsylvania. The driver of the truck was seriously injured as well as one passenger. Passengers had to switch planes because of the major damage to the plane.

March 12

1948: A DC-4 crashed on Mount Sanford in Alaska, killing all 30 people aboard the plane, which had been on its way from Shanghai to New York City. The plane wasn't discovered until July, 1999.

1998: Shortly after a Chicago Express Jetstream 31 took off from Midway Airport, a loose cabin door sheared off the plane and dropped into Lake Michigan. The plane returned to Midway Airport after the incident. No passengers were aboard the plane at the time.

1998: While landing, a United Express commuter jet slid off the end of the runway at the Aspen, Colorado airport. The airport was shut down to incoming traffic for 24 hours while the runways were checked out.

March 13

1996: An MI-8 helicopter carrying oil industry workers crashed into the Caspian Sea near Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, while trying to make an emergency landing during a storm. Thirteen people were killed in the crash.

1996: A Cessna plane belonging to Aruban Avia-Air crashed on a sandy peninsula on the Caribbean coast of Venezuela. All eight people aboard including the pilot were killed in the crash.

1997: An Iranian military C-130 Hercules transport plane crashed in a mountainous region of northeast Iran after the engine failed. 86 people died, including members of the Revolutionary Guard and other army personnel.

1997: A Navy Seahawk helicopter crashed near Cape Hateras, North Carolina, during training exercises. The four crew members could not be found due to eleven-foot seas and 60 mph winds.

1998: One person was killed when his Swearingen 300 SX single-engine plane crashed in a wooded area west of Augusta, Georgia.

March 14

1980: 87 people, including 22 members of an American amateur boxing team, were killed when a Polish airline crashed as it made an emergency landing at the Warsaw, Poland airport.

1995: FAA inspectors took a ValuJet aircraft out of service after discovering a hydraulic leak in the landing gear area, a split in the left flap, another split in the right flap, and a brake hose rubbing a wheel.

1998: After two inches of snow had fallen in Maine, Delta Air Lines MD-88 skidded off the end of the runway at Portland International Airport. No one was injured.

1998: Researchers at Cornell University reported that children living near airports (and, thus, suffering from chronic jet noise) were more likely to suffer from higher blood pressure and boosted levels of stress hormones. In previous studies, researchers had reported that children living near an international airport tended to be poorer listeners and not as good readers as children who lived in quiet areas.

March 15

1996: A Delta jetliner carrying 231 passengers and six crew members heading for Florida returned to La Guardia Airport an hour after receiving a bomb threat. The plane landed safely and all passengers were evacuated without incident.

1996: A Navy S-3 Viking plane crashed shortly after taking off from the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis.

1997: A single-engine vintage plane caught fire and crashed into a backyard shed as it was trying to return to Whiteman Airport in Pacoima, California. The pilot suffered severe burns over 90% of his body while his female passenger was killed. The house burned down.

1997: A reconditioned DC-3 collided with a small single-engine plane about 700 feet above the ground near Newton, Wisconsin. Both planes crashed to the ground. All four people aboard the planes were killed in the crash.

1998: The pilot of a small twin-engine plane got disoriented after taking off in dense fog from the Mendocino, California airport. As a result, the engines stalled out, the plane began to spin, and then crashed. All three people aboard the plane died in the crash.

1998: A hot air balloon had to make an emergency landing on a mountainside near Copper Mountain in Colorado, thus stranding the pilot and four sightseers for several hours. Rescue workers had to use caution in approaching the stranded passengers because they feared the rescue helicopter might set off an avalanche on the mountain.

1998: An Israeli Air Force Cobra attack helicopter snapped in two and fell into the sea off the Israeli coast. The two people in the helicopter, one a Brigadier General, were killed in the crash.

1998: An 18-year-old boy was killed while practicing take-offs and landings at the Allegheny County Airport in Pennsylvania. He radioed in that he was having engine trouble moments before the Cessna 152 hit the ground and cartwheeled to a stop within feet of a house.

March 16

1962: A Flying TIger Super-Constellation disappeared in the western Pacific. 107 people vanished with the plane.

1969: 155 people were killed when a Viasa DC-9 crashed at Maracaibo's Grano de Oro Airport. 84 were killed on the plane and another 71 on the ground.

1991: Seven members of the Reba McEntire band were among ten people killed in a plane crash near San Diego, California.

March 17

1957: Ramon Magsaysay, president of the Philippines, died in an airplane crash.

1960: 63 people died when a Northwest Electra crashed in Indiana due to structural damage.

1996: Four members of a South Carolina family plus the pilot were killed when a sightseeing seaplane owned by the Key West Seaplane Service crashed just off shore of Key West, Florida.

1998: Five people were killed and four others injured when a U.N. helicopter crashed in the mountains of Guatemala. The helicopter had been carrying human rights workers at the time of the crash.

March 18

1996: A Mexico City police helicopter that had been chasing suspected bank robbers crashed into a kindergarten, killing two police officers and a reporter. The children in the kindergarten building escaped without injury. The pilot also survived the crash.

1997: The last episode of Wings, the TV show about a one-plane commuter service operating on Nantucket Island, was taped at Hollywood's Paramount Studios.

1997: After clipping another fighter jet, an Air Force F-16 jet fighter crashed into the Florida Bay near Key West, Florida, but the pilot was able to eject safely before the crash.

1997: Shortly after taking off, a Stavropol Airlines AN-24 jetliner exploded into flames and crashed into a wooded area in southern Russia. All 48 people aboard the airplane were killed in the crash. It was later reported that the plane literally fell apart because of rust.

1998: One of the passenger terminals at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport in Ohio had to be closed down and evacuated for two hours after a man rushed through a security checkpoint and disappeared. When no bomb was found, passengers were allowed to return to the terminal and flights were resumed.

1998: When the nosewheel of a British Airways ATP turboprop plane collapsed as it landed at Manchester Airport in England, the 58 passengers had to jump to safety down emergency chutes. One passenger was injured during the evacuation.

1998: A teenager, who hacked into a phone company's computer system and cut off vital services to the Worcester Regional Airport in March 1997, was charged by federal prosecutors today. Airport backup systems kicked in to prevent any major damage.

1998: A Formosa Airlines Saab 360, with eight passengers and five crew, crashed into the Taiwan Strait moments after taking off from Hsinchu, Taiwan. All thirteen were killed.

March 19

1982: When the plane he was in buzzed the tour bus of heavy metal star Ozzy Osbourne, lead guitarist Randy Rhoads was killed as the plane crashed into a house in Leesburg, Florida.

1996: A Marine Corps transport helicopter crashed shortly after taking off on a training mission at the Marine Corps Air Station at Yuma, Arizona. No one was killed in the crash, as the five crew members and seven passengers evacuated safely.

1996: An Air National Guard F-16 jet crashed near Grayling, Michigan. No one was hurt.

1997: Michael de Guzman, a Filipino who had discovered gold in Kalimantan, tumbled 800 feet to his death when he jumped from the helicopter that was transporting him from Busang to Samarinda, Indonesia. He left a Rolex and 7-page suicide note behind.

1997: The 73-year-old pilot of an experimental Passadori norman Breezy ultra-light aircraft died when his plane crashed in the desert east of Gilroy, California. A passenger survived the crash.

1998: Two Cessnas, a twin-engine 310 and a single-engine 152, collided over a Los Angeles suburb. Both pilots were killed as well as one person who was probably riding in the twin-engine 310. The crashing planes destroyed a house and a condominum.

March 20

1996: After the pilot died of a heart attack, Leland Capps, a man with limited flying experience, landed a single-engine Cessna 206 float plane on the waters of Lake Washington near Seattle. When the floats collapsed, the plane slid out of the water onto the runway of the Renton Municipal Airport. The front of the plane sustained major damage, but Capps suffered only minor injuries. The pilot, of course, died.

1998: Four people died when their small plane crashed near a residential area of New Lebanon, Indiana.

March 21

1983: Five people were killed when a Navy C-1A trainer crashed into Success Glacier on Mt. Rainier in Washington.

1987: Dino Martin, son of singer Dean Martin and a member of the Dino, Desi, and Billy pop group, was killed in the crash of an Air National Guard jet in the San Bernardino Mountains of California. His pop group had one hit, "I'm a Fool." Dino was 35 when he died.

1996: Moments before his F-15C jet crashed on take-off, an Air Force pilot ejected during aerial war games at Nellis Air Force Base. His $26 million plane was completely destroyed; he survived.

1996: While doing an overnight maintenance check at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, American Airlines mechanics discovered 64 pounds of cocaine stuffed into the wall panels of a Boeing 757.

The 100 brick-sized blocks of cocaine, with a street value of $2.9 million, were probably stashed on the plane during one of its stops in Costa Rica or Guatemala during the previous week. The mechanics reported the find to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

1996: Almost 20 years after the incidents, an Argentine army officer testified that more than 4,500 political prisoners were told to dance for joy because they were going to be released -- just before they were loaded onto cargo planes, injected with a heavy sedative, flown over the Atlantic Ocean, and dumped into the ocean. These death flights occurred every Wednesday and, when there was extra demand, on Saturdays.

1997: A twin-engine Delta MD-88 commuter jet made an emergency landing at the Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina after someone reported a smoky smell in the cabin of the plane. No fire was detected after the plane landed. None of the 140 passengers were hurt in the incident.

1998: When their Cessna 206 developed an electrical problem, caught fire, and then crashed nose first just short of a runway at the East Kansas City Airport in Grain Valley, Missouri, six skydivers were killed.

1998: Poland's LOT Airline had to cancel a weekend charter flight from Tenerife, Spain to Warsaw because the chief stewardess and a mechanic had been drinking. The pilot delayed his take-off and ordered blood tests of the crew after becoming suspicious of the two crew members.

March 22

1992: 27 people were killed when a USAir Fokker 28 jetliner crashed into the bay while taking off in a snowstorm at La Guardia Airport in New York City. Although the plane had been de-iced twice, it iced up again before taking off. Amazingly, 24 people survived the crash.

1996: Col. Robert Overmyer, an astronaut who commanded one of the last successful flights of the space shuttle Challenger, died when the small plane he was test flying went into a spin and crashed near the Duluth, Minnesota airport. He was not able to free himself from the plane, a small-engine VK30 prototype, in time to use his parachuse.

1996: Air Bosnia made its first commercial flight into war-torn Sarajevo using a Cessna 550. It was also the first commercial flight into the Sarajevo airport since the Bosnia War started in April, 1992.

March 23

1994: When the teenage son of the pilot disconnected the plane's autopilot, an Aeroflot Airbus A-310 crashed near Novokuznetsk in Russia. 70 people were killed in the crash.

1994: An F-16 jet fighter collided with a C-130 transport as both planes attempted to land at Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina. The fighter pilot swerved to miss another transport on the ground and hit a C-141 transport which was in the process of loading Army Rangers. 24 paratroopers were killed in the incident, but the pilot of the jet fighter was able to eject safely before the crash.

1997: W. Lain Guthrie, a commercial airline pilot who became an environmental hero in the early 1970s when he refused to dump waste kerosene from his plane, died at his home. He was 84. (See August 1.)

1998: An F-16 pilot was able to eject safely before his plane crashed into a runway during an emergency landing at Hill Air Force Base in Utah. The pilot had radioed ahead that he was having mechanical problems with his $20 million plane, which was severely damaged in the crash. The pilot walked away with minor injuries.

1998: In an attempted suicide, a man splashed gasoline in a Dash-8 plane flying over Taiwan and tried to set it on fire. Other passengers overpowred him before he could set the plane on fire.

1998: An ambulence helicopter carrying an 11-year-old girl who had been injured in a traffic accident crashed near Griffith Park. The child, two medical personnel, and one of the pilots were killed in the crash. The other pilot was taken to a local hospital in critical condition.

March 24

1995: A USAir DC-9 was about to taxi onto the runway when flames starting coming out of one of its engines. The plane returned to the terminal. No one was hurt.

1996: A Sudanese airliner was hijacked by a Sudanese man and was forced to land at the Eritrean capital of Asmara. None of the 40 passengers in the play were hurt.

March 25

1996: Four tourists from England and Scotland were injured when their hot-air balloon crash-landed, slammed its basket into a ridge, dumped out the passengers, and caught fire near Hartsel, Colorado.

1996: After their Navy T-44A turboprop training plane crashed in the Gulf of Mexico, three aviators became lost at sea. Their bodies were recovered ten days later.

1996: A Boeing 767 and a DC-10 came within 2.25 miles of each other, a near collision in air traffic lingo, when air traffic radio at the Los Angeles International Airport was out for 15 minutes.

1997: Former president George Bush parachuted out of an airplane, the first time in more than five decades. Watch out for falling presidents! During World War II, Bush received the Distinguished Flying Cross for bravery after his torpedo plane was shot down over the Pacific by the Japanese.

1997: A private Gulfstream II jet crashed into a maintenance truck while trying to land at La Guardia Airport in New York City. Neither of the two maintenance workers nor any of the passengers on the plane were hurt in the incident although the plane's right landing gear was sheared off and the plane had a bouncy landing.

1998: The pilot of a U.S. Air Force F-16 died when his bomber crashed in the Yellow Sea near Korea. He had been on a training mission out of Osan Air Base in South Korea.

March 27

1968: Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first person to orbit the Earth, died when his jet fighter crashed.

1977: When a KLM Boeing 747 and a Pan American Boeing 747 jet collided on the runway of the Tenerife airport in the Canary Islands, 582 people were killed, including 249 on the KLM jet and 333 of 394 on board the Pan American jet. It was the deadliest air crash in aviation history. The collision was caused by the confusion in the airport after a terrorist's bomb exploded inside the airport terminal.

1996: Five hours after hijacking an Egyptian Airbus A320 airliner in Egypt and asking to be taken to Libya, three hijackers surrendered peacefully to the Libyan military. No passengers were hurt during the hijacking. The hijackers claimed to have a message from God regarding the Palestinians that they needed to deliver to the heads of Libya, Egypt, and the United States.

1996: Air traffic around the Pittsburgh International Airport was halted for about an hour when the airport's radar screens failed. No accidents occurred. It was the ninth radar failure at the airport in the past six months.

1997: A wing flap from a Delta Airlines jet fell off and landed by a major highway near Dallas. The 18-foot wing flap fell off as the Boeing 767 was approaching the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. The plane was able to land safely despite the missing flap.

1997: A Delta Airlines baggage handler was killed when he fell beneath the wheels of an L-1011 jet which was backing up from the gate at Kennedy International Airport.

1997: After losing their last game of the season during the NCAA tourney, the University of Arkansas basketball team got lost on their way home. The pilot of their private charter plane landed at the wrong airport. When their Boeing 727 touched down at the small airport in Springdale, Arkansas, its nose gear got stuck in the mud at the end of the runway. When the pilot tried to back up, the jet engines tore up the runway pavement.

March 28

1997: An Air Force pilot died when his Warthog A-10 Thunderbolt jet crashed while he was trying to land at Willow Grove Air Reserve Station near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

March 29

1959: The president and founder of the Central African Republic, Barthelemy Boganda, died in a plane crash.

1996: Minutes after taking off from the Sydney, Australia airport, a United Airlines jumbo jet flew through a flock of birds which damaged one of its engines. The pilot circled over the Pacific Ocean for an hour to dump fuel before making an emergency landing at the Sydney airport. No passengers were hurt in the incident.

1998: After losing power in one of its engines, a Peruvian Air Force Antonov An-32 plane plunged nose-first into a drainage canal in the middle of a shantytown on the edge of Piura, Peru. The pilot of the plane was able to steer the plane away from the shantytown itself, thus saving hundreds of people. 28 civilian passengers, who were being evacuated from towns being buffeted by violent storms caused by El Nino, died in the crash. Some passengers and the plane's five-member crew were able to walk away unharmed from the crash. Two people on the ground were hurt by flying debris from the crash.

1998: Lightning struck a United Airlines Boeing 727 en route from Chicago to San Diego. Nonetheless, the plane was able to land safely. No one was hurt in the incident.

March 30

1961: Joseph A. Walker, a civilian pilot working for NASA, flies an X-15 to a height of 169,600 feet above sea level.

1996: When a Piper Cherokee lost power in its only engine, the pilot tried to make an emergency landing near Interstate 495 in southeastern Massachusetts. In attempting to land, the plane hit some trees along the highway, crossed the median, and hit a mid-sized station wagon head on. Both people in the airplane were killed instantaneously. A mother and child riding in the car were also killed.

1997: 70 mph winds tore through Washington State and contributed to the crash of a home-built plane into an empty house. The pilot was hospitalized in critical condition.

1997: An electrical fault caused a British Airways Boeing 747 to be delayed in taking off. The good news? While the rest of the passengers chose to go on other flights leaving early, one passenger stayed to take the flight when the plane was finally ready to take off. The man was bumped up to first class since he was the only passenger on the plane. 17 flight attendants attended to his every need. Nice flight.

1998: A Royal Airlines chartered Boeing 727 aborted its takeoff from the Fort Lauderdale Airport in Florida after an engine caught fire. 17 people were injured while sliding down the plane's emergency chutes.

1998: An unemployed man seeking employment in Germany attempted to hijack a Turkish Cypriot Boeing 727 airliner using a grenade-shaped cigarette lighter. Instead of taking him to Bonn, Germany as he requested, the pilots landed the plane at its original destination in Ankara, Turkey. No one was hurt in the incident.

March 31

1931: Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne, age 43, was killed in an airplane crash.

1986: When a Mexicana Airlines Boeing 727 crashed in a remote mountainous region of Mexico, 167 people died.

1993: When an engine fell off the plane, a Japan Airlines Boeing 747 crashed at the Anchorage, Alaska airport. No one died in the incident.

1995: A Tarom Airlines jet bound for Brussels went down minutes after taking off from Otopeni International Airport, Bucharest, Romania. All 60 people aboard the Airbus A-310 were killed.

1997: When baggage screeners saw the image of a handgun in a piece of luggage as it passed the x-ray machine, they scrambled to pick up the bag. They pounced on the wrong bag. When airport police discovered the error, they closed down the airport concourse and delayed flights for several hours while they rechecked 2,000 passengers and readmitted everyone into the departure area. It was the second such incident in March at the San Jose, California Airport.

1997: Two British Airways Concorde flights were canceled on the same day. In the first incident, a Concorde out of Kennedy International Airport had an engine warning light come on and returned to Kennedy just to be safe. In the second incident, another Concorde out of Kennedy had a landing gear indicator light go on indicating that the plane had experienced a blown tire and could not retract its landing gear. The plane returned to Kennedy and landed safely. The problem was a bad indicator light, not a blown tire.

1998: A Canadian bailiff seized a Russian Aeroflot Airbus A310 as it was preparing to take off from Montreal's Dorval Airport. The seizure came about after a Nova Scotia company got a court order to help it collect a $5.8 million debt.

1998: The Leeds United soccer team survived unhurt when their chartered airplane crashed after its engine caught fire and exploded shortly after takeoff. The pilots were able to return to the airport to make an emergency landing, but the plane still landed on its belly, stopping about 150 feet from the end of the runway.

1998: A Navy anti-submarine twin-engine S-3 Viking carrying four crew members crashed into the Pacific Ocean west of Point Loma near San Diego, California. The crew members were able to parachute to safety and were rescued several hours later.

April

2002: An Air China Boeing 767 traveling from Beijing, China to Pusan, South Korea crashed into a mountain. 128 of the 166 people aboard the plane were killed.

April 1

1996: You're not safe even on the ground -- especially if you're doing something you shouldn't be doing. A TV news crew in a helicopter caught several Los Angeles sheriff's deputies clubbing two illegal immigrants after stopping them following a chase that reached 100 mph at times. Both deputies were suspended without pay.

1997: Three servicemen died and seven others were injured when a U.S. Air Force cargo plane bounced off the runway as it was landing at Tocontin Airport in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. After bouncing off the runway, the plane slid off the end of the runway and onto a major boulevard. The plane's slide ended just short of a block of buildings including several gas stations. No one on the ground was injured in the incident.

1998: The turbine blades on an engine of a Royal Airlines Boeing 747 tore apart and landed on the runway as the plane was about to take off from the Fort Lauderdale, Florida airport. The plane landed safely, but 18 passengers were injured when they had to jump from the plane. The seven-foot fall resulted in many twisted ankles.

1999: When a passenger mistakenly yelled "Fire!" and other passengers joined in, a Continental jet had to return to the Baltimore airport shortly after taking off. After an inspection of the plane, the passengers and crew reboarded for the flight to Cleveland, Ohio.

1999: As it was taking off from O'Hare International Airport in Chicago late at night, a Korean Air Boeing 747 barely missed colliding with an Air China cargo plane that had mistakenly taxied into its path. None of the 340 passengers were hurt in the incident. The Korean Air 747 continued on its way after the near collision.

April 2

1930: The first New York to Bermuda airplane flight landed in Bermuda.

1986: Four U.S. passengers were killed by a bomb which exploded on a TWA airliner flying from Rome, Italy to Athens, Greece.

1996: A Marine Corps FA-18C Hornet jet crashed while flying over the Restricted Area 25-10 bombing range near El Centro, California. The pilot safely ejected before the crash.

1997: An Air Force pilot disappeared along with his A-10 Thunderbolt jet while flying on a training mission west of Tucson, Arizona. The plane was carrying four 500-pound high-explosive bombs. The search for his plane continued for almost a month until search discovered remains of his plane near Vail, Colorado.

April 3

1994: When his ejector seat fired accidentally while his brother was flying a Provost jet upside down, Dces Maloney was catapulted through the plane's plastic canopy and plunged toward earth. Although his parachute failed to open properly and nearly strangled him, he landed safely in a field outside a supermarket near Colchester, England. He suffered no serious injuries.

1996: Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and 32 others died when their Air Force T-43 passenger jet crashed during bad weather while trying to land at Dubrovnik, Croatia.

1997: Five people were killed when a passenger Mi-8 helicopter from a local medical service crashed in the Ural Mountains of Russia. The helicopter had gotten caught in a snowstorm and ran into a radio mast, burst into flames, and crashed.

1997: Three people died in a small plane crash in a rugged mountainous area of northwest Colombia, but two children and their grandmother were found several days later still alive and well. The children's mother, an aunt, and the pilot died in the crash.

1998: The Denton County, Texas attorney survived the crash of a small plane into Lake Ponchartrain as they were approaching the New Orleans Lakefront Airport. Her daughter and two other people were still missing.

April 4

1933: When the U.S. dirigible Akron crashed off the coast of New Jersey, 73 people died.

1975: When a U.S. Air Force C5A Galaxy transport plane crashed shortly after taking off from the Saigon Airport, 172 people were killed, including over 130 Vietnamese orphans being evacuated.

1977: When a Southern Airways DC-9 lost both of its engines during a storm, the pilot tried to land the plane on a state highway in the center of New Hope, Georgia. The plane crashed and burned, killing the pilot, co-pilot, eight people on the ground, and 61 passengers. 19 passengers and 2 stewardesses survived the crash.

1991: Senator John Heinz of Pennsylvania and six others were killed when a helicopter collided with Heinz's plane over a schoolyard in Merion, Pennsylvania.

1996: A state police helicopter crashed in a hillside neighborhood near Yeager Airport in West Virginia. Two troopers were killed in the crash.

1997: Russian sailors aboard the Kapitan Man merchant ship fired a laser beam at a Canadian CH-14 Sea King helicopter that flew over it while the Russian ship was observing an American submarine near the Strait of Juan de Fuca between Washington state and Vancouver Island. The laser beam burned the eyes of an American intelligence officer and the pilot aboard the Canadian helicopter.

1997: A man assaulted a woman on a Delta Air Lines flight after the woman passenger took too long to change her baby's diaper in the first-class lavoratory.

1997: Two pilots fought in the cockpit of a Turkish Airlines passenger plane during a flight between Bangkok and Istanbul after one pilot misunderstood tower control instructions. A third pilot had to complete the flight after the two pilots were subdued by other officers aboard the plane.

1997: While searching for a small plane that crashed in the mountains of northwest Colombia, a small Cessna itself crashed. All four people aboard the rescue plane were killed in the crash.

1998: A single-engine Cessna 172 and a Cessna 525 Citation jet collided over Roswell, Georgia. Five people were killed in the collision, the pilot of the Cessna and a pilot and three passengers of the jet. The Cessna fell on a house but the residents were spared. The jet crashed about a mile away in a rural area. The Cessna 172 was piloted by a man who was inspecting power lines for Georgia Power Company. The Citation jet carried four lawyers from a top Atlanta law firm.

April 5

1988: Shiite terrorists hijacked a Kuwait Airways jumbo jet on the way from Thailand to Kuwait. Demanding that Kuwait release 17 pro-Iranian terrorists, the hijackers divert the plane first to Iran, then Cyprus, and finally to Algeria. During that time they kill two passengers. On April 20th, they release the rest of the passengers and are allowed to leave Algiers.

1991: While on business for NASA, astronaut Manley Carter Jr. was killed in the crash of a commercial airliner near New Brunswick, Georgia. Also on board the plane was John Tower, former Senator from Texas and head of the Tower Commission that studied the National Security Council's actions during the Iran-Contra Affair. His daughter, Marian, and his entourage were also killed.

1996: A Krasnoyarsk Airlines II-76 cargo plane carrying 21 people crashed into the side of the Vachzhets volcano in Russia's far east near the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky airport. Chances are that the crash was caused by an overloaded airplane, a common occurrence in Russia.

1996: Eleven people escaped a sinking Dornier 228 airplane after it crashed into the sea near the island of Matsu. Six others died in the crash caused by bad weather.

1997: When the flight attendant refused to continue to serve her drinks after one bloody mary, a woman passenger attacked the attendant and tried to wrestle her to the floor. While three men attempted to help the attendant, the woman passenger kicked, scratched, bit, and cursed them until she was restrained by headset cords and seatbelt extensions (and a gag in her mouth). Thie incident occurred on a Delta Airlines overnight flight from Tucson, Arizona, to Atlanta, Georgia. Four or five passenger disruptions are reported EVERY DAY to the Air Line Pilots Association National Security Committee. Note: The penalty for assaulting or intimidating a flight crew member is a felony punishable by a maximum ten-year prison sentence as well as a fine.

April 6

1993: A China Southern Airlines Boeing 757 was hijacked by steel firm buyer Huang Shugang and businessman Liu Baocai. Each got seven years in prison in Taiwan for hijacking.

1994: A plane carrying the presidents of Burundi and Rwanda was shot down as it neared the Rwandan capital of Kigali. This tragedy sparked months of killing as the Hutu and Tutsi tribes tried to kill each other off. Ironically, the presidents who were killed were just returning from a conference in Tanzania to discuss ways to dissolve the ethnic rivalries.

1996: During a stopover flight from Los Angeles to Atlanta, a passenger got off the plane at the Phoenix airport and did not make it back in time to catch the continuing flight. Thinking the passenger's bag was a security risk, the pilot tossed the bag from the plane onto the tarmac. In the process, the videocassette recorder in the passenger's bag was smashed to smithereens.

April 7

1997: The head of Cambodia's chamber of commerce shot the tire on a parked Royal Air Cambodge jet after becoming frustrated with lost luggage and flight delays. He flattened the tire with a single shot. His only regret was "that I did not get to shoot the other three tires."

1997: A Continental Airlines Boeing 737 had to make an emergency landing at the Wichita, Kansas airport when one of its two engines malfunctioned. The plane had been on a trip form Los Angeles to Cleveland.

1997: A single-engine Piper Cherokee crashed on the lawn of a Long Island home. The three people aboard the plane suffered serious injuries but lived.

1998: A man who was unhappy because the flight attendant refused to give him more beer to drink began to cause a ruckas on an Air 2000 Boeing 757 charter flight from Birmingham, England to Malta. Several passengers had to stop the man as he tried to get into the pilots' cabin. The man's son then joined in to defend his father. Eventually the pair were subdued. The pilots made an emergency landing at Milan's Malpensa airport, where they handed the father and son over to Italian police.

1998: A single-engine Cessna cargo plane operated by Federal Express crashed into a field as it approached the Bismarck, North Dakota airport. The pilot died in the crash.

April 8

1995: Fourteen people were killed when an Il-76 plane crashed on the slopes of a volcano as it was preparing to land at the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky regional airport in Russia.

1997: The Air Force grounded its B-2 stealth bombers after a shaft assembly connecting an engine on one of the aircraft broke in flight. A week earlier six of the B-2s had become part of the Pentagon's nuclear war plan and were detailed to carry nuclear weapons.

1997: Teng Bunma, a Cambodian businessman, took a pistol from his bodyguard and shot the tire of a Royal Air Cambodge jet in Phnom Penh, Cambodia when he got angry that the airline had lost his luggage.

1997: Five people were injured when a South Florida Waste Management helicopter crashed on the grounds of the Palm Beach International Airport.

1999: A USAirways Express propeller plane hit a doe and two fawns as it was taking off from the Kinston, North Carolina airport. The deer were killed and the plane's right wheel and engine were damaged. The Charlotte-bound flight was cancelled.

2000: A Marine MV-22 tiltrotor Osprey crashed at the Marana Northwest Regional Airport northwest of Tucson, Arizona, during a training exercise. 19 Marines were killed in the incident.

April 9

1997: Israel Radio reported that its air force had been using the wrong control settings on its Bell-212 helicopters for the past twenty years due to a misunderstanding about the manufacturer's instructions. In December 1994, two airmen were killed because of this misunderstanding.

1998: A Cessna 150 became entangled in power lines while trying to land at the King County Airport near Seattle, Washington. The pilot was stranded for hours in an upside down cockpit until he was rescued.

April 10

1936: Football coach and TV color man, John Madden was born on this date. John refuses to travel to football games by air; he always travels by Madden cruiser. He probably read this calendar. He clearly knows something.

1960: An Eastern Electra crashed after hitting birds on taking off from the Boston, Massachusetts airport. 62 people died in the crash.

1973: A BEA flight to Basel, Switzerland, crashed on landing. 104 of the 143 people aboard were killed.

1997: A Cessna Caravan single-engine plane operated by Hageland Aviation crashed nose first into sea ice about five miles off the coast of northern Alaska. None of the five people aboard survived the crash.

1997: Two people were forced to ditch a Piper PA-31 in the Pacific Ocean off the island of Hawaii after the plane's right engine and the other engine couldn't carry the load of a fully-fueled airplane. Both people got safely into an emergency raft moments before their plane sank. The pilot, Kenneth Landau, had previously been involved in a small plane crash. In May 1991, he attempted to land a Cessna 152 on the I-80 near Richmond, California. In that incident, his plane hit the west side of the highway, flipped into the eastbound lanes, and then back to the west lanes. Neither passenger was hurt in that incident either, although one woman in a car was hospitalized.

1998: Two men died when their airplane, operated by Yukon Aviation, crashed in a remote area of southwestern Alaska.

1998: An Italian tourist caused a ruckas on a Continental Airlines DC-10 jetliner flying from Milan, Italy to Newark, New Jersey. After being told by a stewardess to put out a cigarette he was smoking in a bathroom, he got angry. The pilots diverted the flight to Bangor, Maine, where the Italian tourist was taken off the plane and charges with simple assault. He was later sentenced to seven days in jail and a $1,000 fine.

1999: Bits of debris from a C-5A transport plane, including a 16-foot flap, fell on residential property outside Springfield, Massachusetts. The flap narrowly missed a suburban couple doing outdoor chores. The plane, which landed safely, was on a routine training mission working out of Westover Air Reserve Base.

1999: Passengers on an Eastwind Airlines flight from Orlando, Florida to Trenton, New Jersey, refused to get off the plane at Greensboro, North Carolina for fear that they would be stranded at Eastwind's home airport. The discount airline had been plagued by flight delays, cancellations, and reroutings for several weeks prior to this incident.

April 11

1996: You're not even safe in the terminal. When a fire broke out in a flower shop at the Duesseldorf airport, at least 16 people were killed and another 100 injured. Most of the dead people were found in the Air France lounge, but at least one died in an elevator and another in a restroom. The deaths were caused by inhaling poisonous fumes.

1996: Jessica Dubroff, a 7-year-old pilot attempting to set a record for youngest to pilot a plane across the United States, died when her plane crashed shortly after taking off from the Cheyenne, Wyoming airport. Earlier in the week, in a London Times interview, she said, "This started off as a father-daughter adventure, and it's gotten wonderfully out of hand...I'm going to fly till I die."

1997: A three-year-old corpse of a suicide was found aboard the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, which has a crew of 1500 and more than 20 miles of rooms and corridors. You're not safe in the air, not on the land, not even on the sea. Duck!

1997: Duck II: A meteorite hit a car in the mountain town of Chambery, France. The 3-pound molten meteor set the car on fire. Since no one was in the car at the time, no one was hurt.

1997: Two people were killed and another critically injured when their Cessna 172 ran out of gas and crashed in dense woods near Vichy, Missouri.

1998: Two people were killed when their Piper Malibu crashed in a rugged mountain area outside Bigfork, Montana. Several months later, the bodies were finally discovered, already largely consumed by grizzly bears.

April 12

1928: Baron Guenther von Huenefeld, James Firzmaurice, and pilot Hermann Koehl made the first transatlantic flight from east to west. They left Dublin, Ireland, for New York City in their Junkersmonoplane. 37 hours later, they crashed on Greely Island in Labrador. They were rescued.

1997: Four people were killed when their single-engine Beechcraft 36 airplane developed engine problems and slammed into a rocky shoal 75 feet off Crooked Island in the Bahamas.

1998: A Delta Air Lines shuttle flight filed a near midair collision report after coming close to an unidentified aircraft near Reagan Washington National Airport.

April 13

Friday the 13th, in some years.

April 14

1994: Two American F-15C jet fighters mistook two U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopters for enemy helicopters and shot them down over a no-fly zone in northern Iraq. All 26 Army personnel aboard the helicopters were killed.

1996: Two Army OH-58 Kiowa helicopters collided at Fort Bliss, Texas, while they were on a night training mission. Three of the four crew members were killed in the crash.

April 15

1986: The United States launched an air raid against Libya in response to the bombing of a discotheque in Berlin ten days earlier. According to Libya, 37 civilians were killed in the bombing raids.

1996: One woman was killed and seven others injured when a hot air balloon carrying tourists crashed and burned in the desert near Interstate 17 in Phoenix. As the balloon attempted to land, the basket began to roll which, in turn, caused the propane tank to catch fire. The balloon was owned by the Get Carried Away Hot Air Balloon Company.

1996: While escorting the bodies of two soldiers who had been hacked to death by villagers who accused them of raping two women, an army lieutenant opened fire in an airport hangar in Timika, New Guinea. His shots ignited a gun battle that resulted in the deaths of 16 people (11 soldiers and 5 civilians) and the wounding of at least 15 others.

1997: A BK-117 helicopter owned by the Colgate-Palmolive Company crashed into the East River moments after taking off from the 60th Street heliport in New York City. A 3-foot section of the helicopter's tail as well as the rear rotor broke off after a loud bang. One passenger was killed; two others were seriously injured; one escaped with minor injuries.

1999: Passengers of a long-delayed Eastwind Airlines flight grew angry and began chanting, "We want answers," after they got off the plane during a schedule stop in Greensboro, North Carolina. The plane, originally scheduled to leave Boston, Massachusetts for Orlando, Florida at 6:00 a.m. didn't leave until that afternoon. The delay was caused because one of Eastwind's five planes was down for repairs. The plane finally left Greensboro for Orlando around 8:00 p.m. that night.

2002: Air China Flight 129 crashed as it approached Pusan, South Korea. More than 160 passengers and crew were killed.

April 16

1997: Contrary to FAA regulations, a contract maintenance company shipped seven oxygen generators aboard a Continental Airlines jet. After the ValuJet crash in Florida eleven months earlier, the FAA had banned the shipment of such generators on airplanes.

1997: Two jumbo jets, a KLM Boeing 747 and a VASP MD-11, nearly collided as they approached the Los Angeles International Airport. The two passenger jets came within 400 feet of each other when one of the pilots failed to turn as instructed by the air traffic controllers. The jets landed normally and no one was hurt, but it was a close call.

1997: Two Army intelligence officers were killed when their Beech King plane crashed in a marshy area at Ossabaw Island off the coast of Georgia. The two pilots were on a training mission when the plane crashed.

2000: More than 101 people were killed and another 100 injured when a string of blasts rocked the Kinshasa, Congo airport. The cause of the first explosion wasn't clear, but once the first blast hit, it set off fuel and army munitions stored in various buildings. Besides crushing several airport buildings, the blasts shattered windows and threw deadly debris up to several miles away.

April 17

1996: A Navy F-14B jet fighter crashed and exploded at the Oceana Naval Air Station near Virginia Beach, Virginia. Both crewmen were able to eject safely before the crash.

1996: Lionel Rotcajg, son of a Paris nightclub queen, was indicted on May 1 for assaulting and intimidating flight crew members aboard an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami on April 17. The crew members had requested that he stop smoking in the aisles. On October 6, 1997, he was found guilty and sentenced to one year probation and a $6,000 fine.

1997: An Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt jet crashed near Fort Stewart, Georgia when the pilot failed to see a tower during a low-level practice bombing run. The pilot ejected safely.

1999: Seven people were injured, three critically, when their private jet crashed while attempting to land in high winds at the Raleigh County Airport in Beckley, West Virginia. The jet skidded off the runway and crashed down a 150-foot cliff. Amazingly, one person walked away from the crash unhurt.

April 18

1996: One crewmember was killed and five others injured on the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz when an arresting wire failed during aircraft landing operations in the Gulf of Thailand.

1996: Nebraska backup quarterback Brook Berringer and a friend were killed when his small plane crashed into an alfalfa field. Berringer, age 22, helped Nebraska win the 1994 national title and expected to be selected in the NFL draft.

1997: Fifteen people were killed when a Merpati Nusantara ATP turboprop crashed off the island of Sumatra.

1998: Two young boys escaped serious injury when a Beechcraft Bonanza crashed into their house and stopped within three feet of where they were playing with a computer. The plane, on its final approach to North Las Vegas Airpport in Nevada, experienced engine problems which caused it to crash. The two people in the plane also escaped with minor facial cuts. Neighbors doused the plane with fire extinguishers to contain the fire until the local fire department made it to the scene of the crash.

1998: On the same day, in Canton, Michigan, neighbors once again came to the rescue of a crash victim when they used garden hoses and fire extinguishers to douse the burning wreckage of a small plane which had crashed in their surburban neighborhood. A dozen neighbors lifted the tail of the plane and were able to pull the pilot out of the plane. They used their water hoses and fire extinguishers to contain the fire until firefighters could arrive to rescue the passenger in the plane. Both people in the plane were in serious condition after the crash. The two-seater plane had hit the ground so hard that its propeller bounced more than a block away.

April 19

1998: After it ran out of fuel, a kit-built plane known as a Long Easy, crashed in a Detroit, Michigan baseball field, spilling bales of marijuana and a duffle bag of cash around the diamond. The pilot, a 63-year-old man died shortly after the crash. Before hitting the field, the plane had clipped some trees and landed upside-down.

1998: Under windy conditions, two pilots were killed when their single-engine biplanes collided during acrobatic maneuvers at the Kissimmee Air Show of the Stars in Florida. They were members of the four-plane Red Baron Stearman Squadron.

1998: The pilot of a single-engine Mooney M20 plane was killed when his plane crashed less than a 100 yards from the main terminal at Sikorsky Memorial Airport in Stratford, Connecticut. The man missed the approach to the airport, which does not have approach lights.

1999: Three passengers were injured when a Metrojet Boeing 737 had to put on its brakes as it was roaring down the runway. Why did it put on the brakes? Because its left engine was smoking.

1999: Three U.S. Marines were killed when their CH-53E helicopter crashed into the Pacific Ocean off Okinawa during routine night flight training.

2000: 131 people died when an Air Philippines Boeing 737-200 jetliner crashed near the southern city of Davao. It may have overshot the runway as it attempted to land.

April 20

1967: 126 people died when a Swiss Britannia turboprop crashed at Nicosia, Cyprus.

1968: A South African Airways Boing 707 crashed on takeoff from Windhoek. 122 people died.

1978: A Korean Airline Boeing 707-300 enroute from Paris to Tokyo was fired on and forced down near Kem, USSR for violating their airspace. Two passengers were killed.

1997: A passenger aboard a Delta Airlines flight from Daytona Beach, Florida, to Atlanta, Georgia, attacked a flight attendant. The passenger was taken into custody when the plane landed and was prosecuted under federal law.

1998: Shortly after taking off from the airport at Bogota, Colombia, a Boeing 727 airliner leased by Air France went off course, hit a mountain, and exploded in a fireball. The impact was so strong that debris rained down on a residential district in central Bogota miles away.

April 21

1918: The Red Baron, Manfred von Richtofen, was killed in action during World War I.

1962: Frederick Handley Page, designer of the first big airplane (of more than 40 seats), died of natural causes.

1997: An Air Force F-16C jet fighter crashed in a remote swamp in southern Georgia, about 20 miles north of Moody Air Force Base. The pilot was able to eject safely before the crash caused by engine malfunction. It was the third military crash in Georgia in less than a week.

April 22

1966: An Ameriflyers Electra military charter crashed on approaching the Ardmore, Oklahoma airport. 83 people were killed.

1996: The pilot of a small airplane died when his Cessna 150 crashed into a Fokker aircraft plant in Hoogeveen, Netherlands. His passenger, a Dutch forestry service member, was critically injured. No one was injured in the three-story aircraft plant.

1996: Darkstar, a remote-controlled battlefield surveillance aircraft, crashed as it took off on a test flight at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The 15-foot unpiloted spy airplane had its maiden flight near the end of March.

1996: As Baseball Hall of Famer Rod Carew and his family were boarding a plane after returning home from the funeral of his teenage daughter (who had died of leukemia), he asked an attendant to put a wrapped photography of his daughter in a storage area. When the attendant grabbed the photo and threw it into an overhead compartment, Carew told him that if the photo was damaged, "you're not going to hear the end of this." A few moments later, the plane's captain told the Carews they would have to apologize to the attendant or get off the plane. The Carews apologized (even though it had been the Northwest Airlines attendant who had been rude).

1998: A Marine pilot was killed when his AV-8B Harrier attack jet crashed during a routine training mission near Yuma, Arizona. He had apparently ejected, but was found dead five miles from the crash site.

1999: Seven soldiers were killed and four others injured when an Army Black Hawk helicopter crashed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky during a training session.

April 23

1974: 107 people died when a Pan American 707 jet crashed in Bali, Indonesia.

1998: The pilot of a Beechcraft Baron operated by AirNet Systems, a small-package delivery service, died when his plane crashed and burned near the end of the runway at Port Columbus International Airport in Ohio.

1999: Pushing Tin, the movie about out of control air traffic controllers, premiered nationally. If you are comfortable flying in airplanes, don't see this movie.

April 24

1967: Russian cosmonaut Vladimir Kimarov became the first human to die in space. When his parachute tangled during reentry, Kimarov fell more than four miles to earth.

1980: In an ill-fated attempt to rescue the American hostages in Iran ended when three of the eight helicopters used in the attempt failed. To top things off, one of the remaining helicopters then collided with a C-130 transport. Eight American servicemen were killed, five others were injured.

1996: One surgeon was killed and another broke a leg when their helicopter crashed near the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in San Diego. Before their helicopter lost power and crashed, they had been filming aerial shots of another doctor in a gorilla suit in a spoof of the movie medical thriller "Outbreak."

1996: After a mid-air collision at 400 mph during a mock dogfight over the Atlantic Ocean, two Navy pilots flew their damaged FA-18 Hornets 65 miles to the Oceana Naval Air Station where both landed safely with only a few scratches for injuries. One plane lost its canopy and nosecone, the other five feet of its left wing plus part of its left tail section.

April 25

1937: Clem Sohn, a 26-year-old air show performer, died when his parachute failed to open.

1945: During World War II, the last Boeing B-17 air attack against Nazi Germany took place on this date.

1980: A chartered Boeing 727 crashed into a mountain as it attempted to land at the airport in the Canary Islands. 138 British vacationers and 8 crew members were killed in the crash.

1996: A car bomb exploded at the Nigerian air force base near Lagos, Nigeria. No one was injured in the attack by the United Front for Nigeria's Liberation.

1997: A man who hijacked a Cuba-bound plane and diverted it to Miami, Florida in 1996 was convicted on this date. He was later sentenced to 20 years in prison. The man had fled a Palestinian shantytown because of poverty.

1997: 200 passengers were evacuated from Concourse F in Terminal 3 of the Fort Lauderdale International Airport in Florida after a discarded container of pepper spray went off in a garbage can. The concourse was reopened about 40 minutes later.

April 26

1937: German-made airplanes destroyed the Basque town of Guernica in Spain, one of the most significant events of the Spanish Civil War.

1944: Japanese fighters attack an American B-29 for the first time. One fighter is shot down.

1952: The U.S. minesweeper "Hobson" rammed the aircraft carrier "Wasp." 176 were killed in the accident.

1993: A domestic Indian airliner slammed into parked truck during takeoff and crashed near the western city of Aurangabad, killing at least 55 of the 118 people aboard.

1994: When a China Airlines Airbus crashed at Nagoya Airport in Japan, 262 people died. Seven people survived.

1996: Six people died when a Cessna plane crashed and burst into flames while attempting to land at Kushiro Airport on Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido.

1997: An American Airlines MD-80 had to make an emergency landing at the St. Louis, Missouri Airport after ammonia fumes leaked from a passenger's carry-on baggage.

1998: The automated train system at the new Denver International Airport broke down for several hours, thus stranding or inconveniencing thousands of travellers. A wheel fell off one of the cars, thus derailing the train, which resulted also in severing cables for the central computer and other electrical lines.

1999: An Apache AH-64 helicopter crashed during NATO actions in Kosovo. The two crew members escaped with minor injuries.

April 27

1996: A helicopter on a test flight plunged into