Civilian airliners shot down by the military

From their frantic attempts to conceal and remove evidence from the crash site, it now seems clear that it was pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine who shot down Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, killing all 298 people aboard the Boeing 777. What is not yet clear is how deep was the involvement of President Putin of Russia.

In 1983, a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 en route from Alaska to Seoul in south Korea was shot down by a Soviet fighter close to Sakhalin Island. All 269 people on board died. The aircraft had been passing through forbidden Soviet air space around the time of a US reconnaissance mission.

At first the Soviet Union denied shooting down the aircraft, then later admitted it, claiming the jumbo was on a spying mission. It took many years and the collapse of the Soviet regime before the flight data recorders were released.

In 1988, a US warship shot down an Iran Air Airbus A-300 over the Straits of Hormuz, killing all 290 people on board, in the apparent belief that it was an Iranian warplane. The US denied responsibility for the act, but in 1996, it paid more than $130m in compensation after Iran took a case to the International Court of Justice.

The mystery of flight MH370

Perhaps the most baffling mystery in commercial aviation history – the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 – continues to defy solution, and the agony of those with friends and loved ones aboard goes on.

Search aircraft from five countries have been scouring the ocean for a sign of the Boeing 777 that left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing on March 8, carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew. The last contact with it came less than an hour after take-off.

Much attention is now focused on the seas 1,400 miles off Perth, where there have been a number of reports of floating debris. Australia’s prime minister says there is now ‘hope’, but no more than that, that we may be on the verge of finding out what happened to the aircraft.

The Malaysian authorities believe MH370 was taken deliberately off course, for reasons unknown, and there is now speculation that the flight crew may have passed out through lack of oxygen.

Indian air crashes

There appear to be just 7 survivors from the Air India Express air crash at Mangalore in the south of the country, meaning that 159 passengers and crew have been killed. The Boeing 737 arriving from Dubai overshot the runway and burst into flames in a wooded area beyond.

It is not clear what caused the accident. Light rain was falling, but the authorities say visibility was satisfactory, and there was no distress call from the pilot. However, some survivors said they thought they heard a sound like a tyre bursting before the crash. The airport is on a hilltop and can present problems for pilots.

India’s worst ever air crash, and the deadliest mid-air collision in history, happened on November 12, 1996 over the town of Charkhi Dadri, near Delhi. A Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747 and a Kazakhstan Airlines Ilyushin Il-76 collided killing all 312 passengers and crew on the jumbo and the 38 people on the Ilyushin.

The official inquiry blamed the Kazakh pilot saying that he had failed to follow air traffic instructions, and suggesting that the crew’s poor command of English might be a factor. The Saudi pilot was praised by villagers who said he had managed to steer his stricken aircraft away from their homes so that it crashed in an empty field.