5 catastrophic accidents caused by silly mistakes of pilots

Letting children play with the controls, praying to Allah instead of handling the situation or pulling the wrong button are pilot mistakes that have serious consequences.

Airline accidents have the lowest accident rate of any form of transportation, occurring in about 1 in 11 million flights. Of those, the vast majority are due to human error rather than any other factor. Here are some of the worst accidents caused by pilot error:

TransAsia Airways Flight 235, 2015

Scene of the plane crash in Taiwan. Photo: AFP.

“Oh no, I pulled the wrong button” were the pilot’s last words on a flight on February 4, 2015, before the plane crashed into a highway bridge in Taiwan, killing 43 of the 58 passengers.

According to a report from the Taiwan Aviation Safety Council, the plane had just taken off from Songshan Airport in Taipei (Taiwan) when one engine stopped working. The captain at that time accidentally turned off the remaining engine by pulling the throttle wrongly, causing the plane to tilt suddenly and crash into the Keelung River.

Airblue Flight 202, Islamabad, 2010

The accident claimed the lives of 152 people in Pakistan. Photo: KeystoneUSA.

The accident occurred on a domestic flight on July 28, 2010, near the Pakistani capital Islamabad, killing 146 passengers and 6 crew members. The accident could have been avoided if the co-pilot had dared to challenge the captain’s repeated mistakes. However, due to the captain’s constant “humiliation”, he lost all confidence.

The captain allegedly used harsh and abusive words towards his co-pilot throughout the flight, even ignoring warnings from Air Traffic Control to “let him say what he wants to say”. Eventually, due to the monsoon weather, the captain panicked and lost control of the plane, and the co-pilot failed to intervene, causing the plane to plummet into the Margalla Mountains.

Tuninter Flight 153, 2009

In March 2009, the pilot and co-pilot of Tuninter 153 were sentenced to 10 years in prison for causing the deaths of 16 passengers in 2005. The plane was en route from Bari, Italy, to Djerba, Tunisia, when it crashed into the Mediterranean Sea. Only 23 passengers survived after being rescued from the sea.

According to cockpit recordings, Captain Shafik Al Gharbi and co-pilot Ali Kebaier Lassoued called on Allah and the Prophet Mohammed when the plane ran out of fuel due to a mechanical failure, instead of performing emergency rescue operations. Although both later tried to save the situation, they eventually panicked and accepted the accident.

The remains of two Boeing 747s of KLM and Pan Am. Photo: AFP.

Aeroflot Flight 593, 1994

This is considered the most ridiculous accident in the aviation industry, caused by the error of the rescue pilot (below the co-pilot), Yaroslav Kudrinsky, when he let his two children, Yana, 12 years old and Eldar, 15 years old, into the cockpit at midnight and play with the controls.

The crash occurred on March 23, 1994, during a flight from Moscow (Russia) to Hong Kong (China). The Airbus A310 crashed in Siberia, killing all 75 people on board. Based on data from the black box, Kudrinsky's two children sat in the captain's seat and played with the controls, which should have been disabled when the plane switched to autopilot.

Eldar pulled the control knob down for 30 seconds, returning the system to its original manual control state. By the time the captain and co-pilot returned to their seats to regain control, it was too late. The plane crashed into the mountains below, killing all crew and passengers.

Collision of KLM and Pan Am planes, 1977

This is considered the most terrible accident in aviation history, killing 583 people when two Boeing 747s of KLM and Pan Am crashed into each other. The incident happened in March 1977, right at Tenerife airport (Spain) due to a communication error.

A misunderstanding between the KLM crew and Air Traffic Control left the Pan Am plane on the runway as the KLM was about to take off, and thick fog prevented the two from seeing each other. All KLM passengers and crew died. 326 passengers and 9 crew members of the Pan Am plane died. Only 54 passengers and 7 crew members of the Pan Am plane survived, including the captain.

According to VNE