A passenger jet has crashed in Kazakhstan, killing at least 12 people but leaving dozens of survivors.The Bek Air plane was flying from Almaty - Kazakhstan's largest city - to the capital Nur-Sultan when it smashed into a building just after take-off.The Fokker 100 aircraft had 93 passengers and five crew members on board. Survivors described walking from the wreckage into the dark and snow.Dozens are being treated in hospital. The cause of the crash is unclear.A Reuters news agency reporter close to the scene said there was heavy fog at the time.The interior ministry initially said 15 people had been killed, but it later revised the number of victims down to 12.Kazakhstan's aviation committee has suspended all Bek Air flights as well as those involving Fokker 100 aircraft pending the results of the investigation.
The Flightradar24 information website said the flight departed at 07:21 (01:21 GMT), and "the last signal was received in that same minute".The airport said the plane lost height at 07:22 before striking a concrete barrier and crashing into a two-storey building. There was no fire upon impact.Deputy Prime Minister Roman Sklyar said the plane's tail had scraped the runway twice during take-off, leaving marks.The plane crashed into a two-storey building, which was partly destroyed One survivor, businessman Aslan Nazaraliyev, told the BBC that the plane had begun vibrating violently. People screamed and the aircraft smashed into the ground.He said part of the plane was crushed like "an aluminium can". He and others managed to get out and helped fellow passengers to safety."It was ugly. It was dark. We were lighting with cell phone lights," Mr Nazaraliyev said.Another told news website Tengrinews she heard a "terrifying sound" before the plane started losing altitude."The plane was flying at a tilt. Everything was like in a movie: screaming, shouting, people crying," she said.
Mr Sklyar said that most of the passengers who died or suffered serious injuries were in the front part of the plane.Eight people died at the scene, two while being treated at the airport and two in hospital, AFP news agency reports.Some 67 people were injured in the accident, nine of them children, the health ministry said. Forty-nine were still in hospital on Friday evening, of whom eight people were said to be in a critical condition.Most of those on board were Kazakh citizens although Chinese, Kyrgyz and Ukrainian nationals were reportedly among the injured.The captain has been confirmed as one of the fatalities.The editor of the Informburo.kz website said one of its journalists, 35-year-old Dana Kruglova, was killed while flying to see her parents for New Year.A special commission will be set up to determine the cause of the crash.
Kazakhstan's President Qasym-Jomart Toqayev has declared a day of national mourning on Friday.He expressed his "deep condolences" to relatives and said "all those responsible will be severely punished in accordance with the law".He also ordered an audit of all Kazakh airlines.Bek Air also expressed its condolences and said it was doing everything it could to clarify what happened.Almaty's airport said it was operating normally and the flight schedule was unaffected.Nur-Sultan - a city formerly known as Astana - was renamed after former-President Nursultan Nazarbayev shortly after he stood down in March.
What are the odds of surviving a plane crash?A survey of crashes in the US between 1983 and 2000 found that 95% of aircraft occupants survived accidents, including 55% in the most serious incidents.A study of crashes worldwide by the European Transport Safety Council has found that 90% are survivable.Flying remains the safest way to travel. Your chances of being in a crash in the first place are vanishingly small.In 2018 - an average year in terms of aircraft accidents - 514 people died worldwide in crashes involving commercial flights, from a total of more than four billion passengers. Bek Air was founded in 1999, initially targeting VIP flight operations, the company's website says. Nowadays, the company describes itself as Kazakhstan's first low-cost airline.Its fleet is made up of seven Fokker 100 aircraft. The aircraft in this crash received its most recent flight certificate in May.
A Bek Air flight leaving Kazakhstan's capital in 2018 Medium-sized twin-turbofan airliner, designed mainly for short-range flights
First flight in 1986 - 283 jets built in totalProduction terminated in 1997 after Fokker, a Dutch manufacturer, went bankrupt
Maintenance division taken over by other aircraft services firmsHas been involved in two other serious crashes. A Palair Macedonian Airlines flight crashed after takeo-ff from Skopje, North Macedonia, in 1993, killing 83 of the 97 people on board. All 99 people on board a TAM flight died in a crash near São Paulo, Brazil, in 1996. Four others died on the ground.This is not the first serious plane crash in the city.On 29 January 2013, a passenger plane travelling from the northern town of Kokshetau came down near Almaty, killing 20 people.A month earlier, 27 people died when a military plane carrying senior Kazakh security officials crashed in the south of the country.
How cool heads glided jet down to safety
The Russian pilots who crash-landed a fuel-laden Airbus jet in a corn field, without any serious harm to the 233 people on board, are being hailed as heroes.The A321 was moments into its flight, after taking off from Moscow's Zhukovsky airport, when a flock of gulls got sucked into its engines, causing both to fail.Russians are comparing the drama to "Miracle on the Hudson" - the bird strike that almost doomed an Airbus over New York in 2009, but ended happily when the pilot landed the jet safely in the Hudson River.What happened to the Russian A321?It was a regular flight from Moscow to Simferopol, in Crimea, with 226 passengers on board, mostly going on holiday to the seaside.The Ural Airlines plane weighed as much as 77 tonnes and pilot Damir Yusupov told reporters how narrowly the passengers and seven crew had escaped disaster.Capt Damir Yusupov was praised for a "textbook" crash-landingThe plane was climbing, accelerating, when first one engine, then the other, suddenly shut down.When one engine failed they thought they could still turn back to the airport, Capt Yusupov said."When we saw that the second was also losing power, despite all of our efforts, the plane began losing height," he said."I changed my mind several times, because I was planning to gain height," he said. But Flightradar data shows that the A321 had only reached 243m (797ft)."I planned to reach a certain height, hold it there, figure out the engine failure, make the correct decision, work it all out. But then it turned out there was really hardly any time."
Steve Rosenberg
✔
@BBCSteveR
Today’s Russian papers on the remarkable emergency landing by Ural Airlines Flight 178:
▪️”a hair’s breadth from disaster”
▪️”miracle in a corn field”
▪️”Moscow’s Miracle on the Hudson”
But could the bird strike on the jet be linked to a refuse dump near airport? #ReadingRussia
Capt Yusupov and his co-pilot, Georgi Murzin, managed to stop the fuel supply to the engines and kept the jet level, gliding it down into the corn field, without lowering the undercarriage. With the wheels down, there is a risk of flying debris rupturing the plane's fuel tanks.
He said he had practised emergency landings on a flight simulator at Ural Airlines.
"I really don't feel like a hero," he said. "I did what I had to do, saved the plane, the passengers, the crew."
Yuri Sytnik, one of Russia's top pilots, told the daily Komsomolskaya Pravda: "The crew did everything by the book: shut down the engines... brought the plane down really smoothly, touched down first with the tail section, as required, killed the speed - that's a very tricky moment: you don't dip the nose, don't let an engine hit the ground."
Passengers were evacuated via escape slides and were told to get away from the plane quickly.
An 11-year-old boy, Vitya Babin, said: "One of the stewardesses said there was smoke coming from the plane and we immediately panicked. We ran after one of the men. He said follow me."
About 70 of the passengers got medical attention, as the landing was rough and they were bruised, but just one woman needed to stay in hospital.
Luckily, the high-standing maize crop acted like a cushion, and it was damp from rain, so sparks did not ignite it. In many other directions around Moscow the jet would have come up against a terrain of roads and buildings.
Image copyrightREUTERS
How big is the risk of bird strikes?
Russia's Vedomosti daily reports that in 2015 there were 411 bird strikes in Russia, and last year 1,021. But it is a daily hazard in aviation worldwide.
Data from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) shows there were 1,835 confirmed bird strikes in the UK in 2016, and 1,380 in 2012. As in Russia, the number has been steadily rising, suggesting a link with the growth in air traffic.
There is a rubbish dump that attracts birds, just 2km (1.2 miles) from Zhukovsky airport, according to Vedomosti. Other Russian dailies also point to illegal rubbish dumps near airports as a serious hazard.
Moscow officials quoted by Tass news agency however said the nearest rubbish dump to Zhukovsky was 14km away.
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Gen Vladimir Popov, a military pilot quoted by Komsomolskaya Pravda, said Russian airports were assisted by bird-watching experts, but no counter-measures were wholly effective.
Grilles could not be installed on the engines, because they would interfere with the aerodynamics and air supply, cutting the jet's speed and thrust, he said.
Airports use various methods: scarecrows, big shiny balls like those in discos, fire engines with loud sirens, bangs from bird-scaring projectiles and jets of water.
According to Gen Popov, August is a risky time, when young birds are taking wing, adventurous and full of energy.
The CAA says another deterrent is to keep airport grass well trimmed, reducing the habitats for wildlife that birds prey on. UK airports also have teams monitoring wildlife and analysing bird strikes.
July and August are peak time for bird strikes in the UK, the data shows. In the vast majority of cases bird strikes did not affect operations.
In 2012-2016 there were 4-5 confirmed bird strikes per 10,000 aircraft movements, the CAA reports. In that period, gulls were the birds most often involved (1,100 confirmed cases), followed by swallows and martins (900 cases).
The CAA says the species that cause most damage in bird strikes are the mute swan and Canada goose.
How does this case differ from the Hudson River landing?
The New York drama was turned into a movie, "Sully: Miracle on the Hudson", and the Moscow flight could well be similarly immortalised.
Russian pilots interviewed by BBC Russian spoke of some significant differences, although both flights were almost doomed by bird strikes, and in both cases there was total engine failure.
The US Airways jet lying in the Hudson River in January 2009
All 155 people aboard the US plane were rescued by nearby boats and there were few serious injuries. The Moscow flight had a similar happy ending.
The Russian A321 pilots had less flying experience, whereas the US Airways pilot was aged 57, with 30 years' experience, and had also flown fighter jets.
The two Russians, however, had both graduated with top marks from a top civil aviation college. Capt Yusupov joined Ural Airlines in 2013, aged 33, after college; before then he had worked as a lawyer.
The Russians had less time to react. The US Airways jet had climbed to 975m before the bird strike - three times higher than the A321.
In both cases, there were safe landing sites: a corn field and a fairly shallow stretch of the Hudson River.
Air disasters timeline
11 March 2019
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A chronology of major air disasters since 1998:
2019
10 March An Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max crashes six minutes after take-off from Addis Ababa. All 157 people onboard are killed. The victims come from more than 30 countries.
Image caption
All 157 passengers and crew were killed when the Ethiopian Airlines plane crashed shortly after take-off
2018
29 October A Boeing 737 Max, operated by Lion Air, crashes into the Java Sea shortly after taking off from Jakarta, Indonesia. All 189 passengers and crew are killed, and a volunteer diver dies in the subsequent recovery operation. Investigators said the plane - which had had technical problems on previous flights - should have been grounded.
18 May A Boeing 737 passenger plane crashes shortly after take-off from Jose Marti International Airport in Havana, killing 112 people. One passenger survives.
11 April A military plane crashes shortly after take-off near the Algerian capital Algiers, killing all 257 people on board, including 10 crew members. Most of the dead are soldiers and their families.
12 March A plane carrying 71 passengers and crew crashes on landing at Kathmandu airport. More than 50 people are killed when the Bombardier Dash 8 turboprop comes down.
18 February A passenger plane crashes into the Zagros mountains in Iran killing all 66 people on board. The Aseman Airlines ATR turboprop crashes about an hour after taking off in the capital, Tehran, heading for the south-western city of Yasuj.
11 February A Russian passenger plane crashes minutes after leaving Moscow's Domodedovo airport with 71 people on board. The Antonov An-148 belonging to Saratov Airlines was en route to the city of Orsk in the Ural mountains when it crashed near the village of Argunovo, about 80km (50 miles) south-east of Moscow.
2017
There were no passenger jet crashes in 2017 - the safest year in the history of commercial airlines.
2016
25 December A Russian military Tu-154 jet airliner crashes in the Black Sea, with the loss of all 92 passengers and crew. The plane came down soon after take-off from an airport near the city of Sochi. It was carrying artistes due to give a concert for Russian troops in Syria, along with journalists and military.
Image copyrightEPA
Image caption
Bereaved residents of the Black Sea resort of Sochi must now come to terms with the latest air disaster
7 December All 48 people on board a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) plane were killed when it crashed in the north of the country. The national airline - accused of safety failures in the past - insisted this time that strict checks on Flight PK-661 from Chitral to Islamabad left "no room for any technical error".
Image copyrightEPA
Image caption
All 48 people on board the Pakistan International Airlines plane were killed when it crashed in the north of the country on 7 December
28 November The plane carrying the football team of the Brazilian club Chapecoense runs out of fuel and crashes near Medellin, Colombia, killing 71 people, including most of the players and management. Three players were among the six survivors, while nine did not travel.
19 May French President Francois Hollande confirms that an EgyptAir flight reported missing between Paris and Cairo has crashed, with 66 people on board.
19 March A FlyDubai Boeing 737-800 crashes in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, killing all 62 people on board.
2015
31 October An Airbus A321, operated by Russian airline Kogalymavia, crashes over central Sinai some 22 minutes after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh, killing all 224 people on board. The Islamic State group's local affiliate later says it brought down the plane in response to Russian intervention in Syria.
30 June Indonesian Hercules C-130 military transport plane crashes into a residential area of Medan. The army says all 122 people on board died, along with at least 19 on the ground.
24 March: Germanwings Airbus A320 airliner crashes in the French Alps near Digne, on a flight from Barcelona to Dusseldorf. All 148 people on board were feared dead.
2014
28 December: AirAsia QZ8501 flying from Surabaya in Indonesia to Singapore goes missing over the Java sea. The pilot radioed for permission to divert around bad weather but no mayday alert was issued. There were 162 passengers and crew on board.
24 July: Air Algerie AH5017 disappears over Mali amid poor weather near the border with Burkina Faso. The McDonnell Douglas MD-83 was operated by Spain's Swiftair, and was heading from Ouagadougou to Algiers carrying 116 passengers - 51 of them French. All are thought to have died.
23 July: Forty-eight people die when a Taiwanese ATR-72 plane crashes into stormy seas during a short flight. TransAsia Airways GE222 was carrying 54 passengers and four crew to the island of Penghu. It made an abortive attempt to land before crashing on a second attempt.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES
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Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was believed to have been shot down over conflict-hit Ukraine
17 July: Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crashes near Grabove in eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board, 193 of them Dutch. Pro-Russian rebels are widely accused of shooting the plane down using a surface-to-air missile - they deny responsibility.
8 March: The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines MH370 during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing leads to the largest and most expensive search in aviation history. Despite vast effort, notably in the hostile South Indian Ocean, nothing was found until July 2015, when an aircraft wing part washed up on Reunion Island. French officials confirmed the debris was from MH370.
11 February: A military transport plane - a Hercules C-130 - carrying 78 people crashes in a mountainous part of north-eastern Algeria. Reports suggest there is one survivor from among the military personnel, family members and crew.
2013
17 November: Tatarstan Airlines Boeing 737 crashes on landing in Kazan, Russia, killing all 50 people on board.
16 October: Forty-nine people, including foreigners from some 10 countries as well as Laotian nationals, die when a Lao Airlines ATR 72-600 plunges into the Mekong River as it came in to land.
2012
3 June: A Dana Air passenger plane with about 150 people on board crashes in a densely populated area of Nigeria's largest city, Lagos.
20 April: A Bhoja Air Boeing 737 crashes on its approach to the main airport in the Pakistani capital Islamabad, killing all 121 passengers and six crew.
2011
26 July: Some 78 people are killed when a Moroccan military C-130 Hercules crashes into a mountain near Guelmim in Morocco. Officials blamed bad weather.
Image copyrightAFP
Image caption
The pilot of the IranAir Boeing 727 which crashed near the north-western city of Orumiyeh reported a technical failure before trying to land
8 July: A Hewa Bora Airways plane crash-lands in bad weather in Democratic Republic of Congo, killing 74 of the 118 people on board.
9 January: An IranAir Boeing 727 breaks into pieces near the city of Orumiyeh, killing 77 of the 100 people on board. The pilots had reported a technical failure before trying to land.
2010
5 November: An Aerocaribbean passenger turboprop crashes in mountains in central Cuba, killing all 68 people on board.
28 July: A Pakistani plane on an Airblue domestic flight from Karachi crashes into a hillside while trying to land at Islamabad airport, killing all 152 people on board.
22 May: An Air India Express Boeing 737 overshot a hilltop airport in Mangalore, southern India, and crashed into a valley, bursting into flames and killing 158.
12 May: An Afriqiyah Airways Airbus 330 crashes while trying to land near Tripoli airport in Libya, killing more than 100 people.
10 April: A Tupolev 154 plane carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski crashes near the Russian airport of Smolensk, killing more than 90 people on board.
25 January: Ethiopian Airlines passenger jet crashes into the sea with 89 people on board shortly after take-off from Beirut.
2009
15 July: A Caspian Airlines Tupolev plane crashes in the north of Iran en route to Armenia. All 168 passengers and crew are reported dead.
30 June: A Yemeni passenger plane, an Airbus 310, crashes in the Indian Ocean near the Comoros archipelago. Only one of the 153 people on board survives.
1 June: An Air France Airbus 330 travelling from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashes into the Atlantic with 228 people on board. Search teams later recover some 50 bodies in the ocean.
Image copyrightAFP
Image caption
All 168 passengers and crew were reported dead when a Caspian Airlines Tupolev plane crashed in the north of Iran en route to Armenia
20 May: An Indonesian army C-130 Hercules transport plane crashes into a village on eastern Java, killing at least 97 people.
12 February: A passenger plane crashes into a house in Buffalo, New York, killing all 49 people on board and one person on the ground.
2008
14 September: A Boeing-737 crashes on landing near the central Russian city of Perm, killing all 88 passengers and crew members on board.
24 August: A passenger plane crashes shortly after take-off from Kyrgyzstan's capital, Bishkek, killing 68 people.
20 August: A Spanair plane veers off the runway on take-off at Madrid's Barajas airport, killing 154 people and injuring 18.
2007
30 November: All 56 people on board an Atlasjet flight are killed when it crashes near the town of Keciborlu in the mountainous Isparta province, about 12km (7.5 miles) from Isparta airport.
16 September: At least 87 people are killed after a One-Two-Go plane crashed on landing in bad weather at the Thai resort of Phuket.
17 July: A TAM Airlines jet crashes on landing at Congonhas airport in Sao Paulo, in Brazil's worst-ever air disaster. A total of 199 people are killed - all 186 on board and 13 on the ground.
5 May: A Kenya Airways Boeing 737-800 crashes in swampland in southern Cameroon, killing all 114 on board. The official inquiry is yet to report on the cause of the disaster.
1 January: An Adam Air Boeing 737-400 carrying 102 passengers and crew comes down in mountains on Sulawesi Island on a domestic Indonesian flight. All on board are presumed dead.
2006
29 September: A Boeing 737 carrying 154 passengers and crew crashed into the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, killing all on board, after colliding with a private jet in mid-air.
22 August: A Russian Tupolev-154 passenger plane with 170 people on board crashes north of Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine.
9 July: A Russian S7 Airbus A-310 skids off the runway during landing at Irkutsk airport in Siberia. A total of 124 people on board die, but more than 50 survive the crash.
3 May: An Armavia Airbus A-320 crashes into the Black Sea near Sochi, killing all 113 people on board.
2005
10 December: A Sosoliso Airlines DC-9 crashes in the southern Nigerian city of Port Harcourt, killing 103 people on board.
6 December: A C-130 military transport plane crashes on the outskirts of the Iranian capital Tehran, killing 110 people, including some on the ground.
Image copyrightAFP
Image caption
A mass funeral was held for those who died when a Mandala Airlines plane with 112 passengers and five crew on board crashed after take-off in the Indonesian city of Medan
22 October: A Bellview airlines Boeing 737 carrying 117 people on board crashes soon after take-off from the Nigerian city of Lagos, killing everyone on board.
5 September: A Mandala Airlines plane with 112 passengers and five crew on board crashes after take-off in the Indonesian city of Medan, killing almost all on board and dozens on the ground.
16 August: A Colombian plane operated by West Caribbean Airways crashes in a remote region of Venezuela, killing all 160 people on board. The airliner, heading from Panama to Martinique, was packed with residents of the Caribbean island.
14 August: A Helios Airways flight from Cyprus to Athens with 121 people on board crashes north of the Greek capital Athens, apparently after a drop in cabin pressure.
16 July: An Equatair plane crashes soon after take-off from Equatorial Guinea's island capital, Malabo, west of the mainland, killing all 60 people on board.
3 February: The wreckage of Kam Air Boeing 737 flight is located in high mountains near the Afghan capital Kabul, two days after the plane vanished from radar screens in heavy snowstorms. All 104 people on board are feared dead.
2004
21 November: A passenger plane crashes into a frozen lake near the city of Baotou in the Inner Mongolia region of northern China, killing all 53 on board and two on the ground, officials say.
3 January: An Egyptian charter plane belonging to Flash Airlines crashes into the Red Sea, killing all 141 people on board. Most of the passengers are thought to be French tourists.
2003
25 December: A Boeing 727 crashes soon after take-off from the West African state of Benin, killing at least 135 people en route to Lebanon.
8 July: A Boeing 737 crashes in Sudan shortly after take-off, killing 115 people on board. Only one passenger, a small child survived.
Image copyrightAFP
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The Benin air crash happened when a Boeing 727 dropped out of the sky soon after take-off, killing at least 135 people travelling to Lebanon
26 May: A Ukrainian Yak-42 crashes near the Black Sea resort of Trabzon in north-west Turkey, killing all 74 people on board - most of them Spanish peacekeepers returning home from Afghanistan.
8 May: As many as 170 people are reported dead in DR Congo after the rear ramp of an old Soviet plane, an Ilyushin 76 cargo plane, apparently falls off, sucking them out.
6 March: An Algerian Boeing 737 crashes after taking off from the remote Tamanrasset airport, leaving up to 102 people dead.
19 February: An Iranian military transport aircraft carrying 276 people crashes in the south of the country, killing all on board.
8 January: A Turkish Airlines plane with 76 passengers and crew on board crashes while coming in to land at Diyarbakir.
2002
23 December: An Antonov 140 commuter plane carrying aerospace experts crashes in central Iran, killing all 46 people aboard. The delegation had been due to review an Iranian version of the same plane built under licence.
27 July: A fighter jet crashes into a crowd of spectators in the west Ukrainian town of Lviv, killing 77 people, in what is the world's worst air show disaster.
1 July: Seventy-one people, many of them children die when a Russian Tupolev 154 aircraft on a school trip to Spain collides with a Boeing 757 transport plane over southern Germany.
25 May: A Boeing 747 belonging to Taiwan's national carrier - China Airlines - crashes into the sea near the Taiwanese island of Penghu, with 225 passengers and crew on board.
7 May: China Northern Airlines plane carrying 112 people crashes into the sea near Dalian in north-east China.
7 May: On the same day, an EgyptAir Boeing 735 crash lands near Tunis with 55 passengers and up to 10 crew on board. Most people survive.
4 May: A BAC1-11-500 plane operated by EAS Airlines crashes in the Nigerian city of Kano, killing 148 people - half of them on the ground.
15 April: Air China flight 129 crashes on its approach to Pusan, South Korea, with over 160 passengers and crew on board.
12 February: A Tupolev 154 operated by Iran Air crashes in mountains in the west of Iran, killing all 117 on board.
29 January: A Boeing 727 from the Ecuadorean TAME airline crashes in mountains in Colombia, killing 92 people.
2001
12 November: An American Airlines A-300 bound for the Dominican Republic crashes after takeoff in a residential area of the borough of Queens, New York, killing all 260 people on board and at least five people on the ground.
8 October: A Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) airliner collides with a small plane in heavy fog on the runway at Milan's Linate airport, killing 118 people.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES
Image caption
The crashed American Airlines flight of November 2000 left much of the Rockaway neighbourhood of New York enveloped by smoke
4 October: A Russian Sibir Airlines Tupolev 154,en route from Tel Aviv to Novosibirsk in Siberia, explodes in mid-air and crashes into the Black Sea, killing 78 passengers and crew.
3 July: A Russian Tupolev 154,en route from Yekaterinburg in the Ural mountains to the Russian port of Vladivostok, crashes near the Siberian city of Irkutsk, killing 133 passengers and 10 crew.
2000
30 October: A Singapore Airlines Boeing 747 bound for Los Angeles crashes after take-off from Taipei airport in Taiwan, killing 78 of the 179 people on board.
23 August: A Gulf Air Airbus crashes into the sea as it comes in to land in Bahrain, killing all 143 people on board.
25 July: Air France Concorde en route for New York crashes into a hotel outside Paris shortly after takeoff, killing 113 people, including four on the ground.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES
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The Singapore Airlines Boeing 747 heading for Los Angeles crashed soon after take-off from Taipei airport in Taiwan
17 July: Alliance Air Boeing 737-200 crashes into houses attempting to land at Patna, India, killing 51 people on board and four on the ground.
19 April: Air Philippines Boeing 737-200 from Manila to Davao crashes on approach to landing, killing all 131 people on board.
31 January: Alaska Airlines MD-83 from Mexico to San Francisco plunges into ocean off southern California, killing all 88 people on board.
30 January: Kenya Airways A-310 crashes into Atlantic Ocean shortly after takeoff from Abidjan, Ivory Coast, en route for Lagos, Nigeria. All but 10 of the 179 people on board die.
1999
31 October: EgyptAir Boeing 767 crashes into Atlantic Ocean after taking off from John F. Kennedy Airport in New York on flight to Cairo, Egypt, killing all 217 on board.
24 February: China Southwest Airlines plane crashes in a field in China's coastal Zhejiang province after a mid-air explosion. All 61 people on board the Russian-built TU-154 flying from Chongqing to the south-eastern city of Wenzhou are killed.
1998
11 December: Thai Airways International A-310 crashes on a domestic flight during its third attempt to land at Surat Thani, Thailand, killing 101 people.
2 September: Swissair MD-11 from New York to Geneva crashes in the Atlantic Ocean off Canada killing all 229 people on board.
16 February: Airbus A-300 owned by Taiwan's China Airlines crashes near Taipei's Chiang Kai-shek airport while trying to land in fog and rain after a flight from Bali, Indonesia. All 196 on board and seven people on ground are killed.
2 February: Cebu Pacific Air DC-9 crashes into mountain in southern Philippines, killing all 104 people aboard.
