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.

Aircraft that vanished

The hunt for the missing Malaysia Airlines 777 goes on, and on, but, of course, it is not the only aircraft to have vanished without trace. Perhaps the most famous was the Lockheed Electra being flown by Amelia Earhart (pictured) in her attempt to become the first woman to fly around the world in 1937. A voice message from Earhart and her navigator near Howland Island in the mid-Pacific was the last thing ever heard from the flight.

Much bigger aircraft have also disappeared. In 2003, a Boeing 727, being leased by TAAG Angola Airlines, took off from Luanda with its tracking transponder switched off. The aircraft had been idle for 14 months and had racked up millions of dollars in airport fees. No trace of it or the one person known to be on board has ever been found.

In 1962, a Flying Tiger Line Lockheed Super Constellation chartered by the US military disappeared over the western Pacific. It had departed from Travis Air Force Base, California, carrying 93 American soldiers to fight the Viet Cong, 3 South Vietnamese military personnel and 11 crew. The pilot’s last message gave the aircraft’s position as 280 miles west of Guam.

A tanker in the area reported seeing what looked like an aircraft exploding, but one of the biggest air and sea searches in the history of the Pacific found nothing. Another Super Constellation from Travis Air Base carrying secret military cargo crashed the same day in the Aleutian Islands, leading to strong suspicions that both were sabotaged.

(Once) Britain's deadliest air crash

Last night I was fortunate enough to be invited to speak to Croydon Women’s Institute about the disaster history of their area. One incident that I mentioned was the air crash of 9 December, 1936, which was, at the time the deadliest in British history.

That day, Croydon Airport was shrouded by fog, with visibility down to about 50 yards, as a KLM DC-2 took off for Amsterdam.  Because of the fog, the pilot was having to follow a while line on the grass of the airfield to get the right line – a common procedure at UK airports at the time, and one that had been successfully used for a number of departures that day.

This time, the DC-2 veered off the line and, instead of heading west as it should have done, started to go south towards higher ground. After clearing the airport it struck the chimney of a house, and crashed into another, fortunately empty, home on the other side of the street.

Fire broke out, and the aircraft and two houses were destroyed. Of the 17 passengers and crew on board, only two survived. Among the dead was Arvid Lindman, a former Swedish Prime Minister.