An air crash gazetteer - after MH17

[TonyGosling]

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#MH17 Shot Down: This Is Not The First Time
By Tanvi Nalin | Jul 19, 2014 | 1 Comment
http://www.youngisthan.in/world/mh17-shot-down-this-is-not-the-first-t ime/8259

#MH17 Shot Down: This Is Not The First Time

In a new twist to the Malaysian Airlines MH17 crash story, the Ukraine has accused pro-Russian rebels of trying to destroy evidence of "international crimes" at the crash site of a Malaysia Airlines plane.

The Ukrainian government has said that the rebels led by Russia were preventing international representatives and its own experts from starting their investigation.

The Boeing 777 was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. It is believed flight MH17 crashed after being hit by a surface-to-air missile fired from a Buk launcher from rebel-held area in east Ukraine on Thursday. All 298 people on board died.

The plane was carrying 192 Dutch nationals (including one with dual US citizenship), 44 Malaysians (including 15 crew), 27 Australians, 12 Indonesians and 10 Britons (including one with dual South African citizenship), four Germans, four Belgians, three from the Philippines, and one each from Canada and New Zealand.

It is believed that nearly 100 HIV/AIDS scientists, activists, policy makers and consultants lost their lives in the tragic accident as they were headed to a conference in Melbourne, Australia.

While it is a terrible news and puts forth questions on the world peace initiatives, it is not the first time that a plane has been shot down. Here is a list of such cases:

• Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 -- On February 21, 1973, the Libyan Airlines Boeing 727-200 plane was shot down by Israeli fighters when it strayed into the airspace of the Sinai Desert, then under Israeli control.It was believed that the pilots got lost due to bad weather and equipment failure over northern Egypt, resulting in the plane entering Israeli-controlled airspace over the Sinai desert. After firing warning shots and giving signals to land, two Israeli fighter jets shot down the plane. Out of 113 people on board, only five, including the co-pilot, survived.

• Korean Air Lines Flight 007 -- On September 1, 1983, 239 people aboard a Korean Air Lines flight bound from New York to Seoul were killed when the passenger jet was shot down by Soviet fighters during the Cold War. KAL Flight 007 had veered off course and into Soviet territory, and pair of fighter jets was dispatched to intercept the perceived intruder. U.S. Rep. Larry McDonald of Georgia was among the passengers. The downing produced a giant outcry at the time, though the full facts did not become known until after the Cold War's end.

• Iran Air Flight 655 -- On July 3, 1988, Dubai bound Iran Air Airbus A300 was shot down by the USS Vincennes above the volatile Persian Gulf. All 290 passengers and crew aboard were killed. The United States said the Navy ship had been exchanging fire with Iranian ships and mistook the passenger jet for an Iranian F-14 fighter jet that had been sold to Iran before the 1979 revolution.

Iran condemned the incident, calling it a "criminal act", an "atrocity" and a "massacre", while the US insisted it was a misunderstanding. The case led Iran to begin legal proceedings against the US in the International Court of Justice in 1996. The American government later compensated the families of victims.

• Transair Georgia -- A total of 136 people died when three Tupolev civilian airliners belonging to Transair Georgia were hit by rebel missiles and gunfire in the breakaway region of Abkhazia during its war of independence with Georgia.

The first plane, a T-134 flying from Russia, was struck on approach to Abkhazia's Sukhumi airport on 21 September. The jet crashed into the Black Sea, claiming the lives of all five crew members and 22 passengers.

The following day, a T-154 was shot down while attempting to land at Sukhumi airport. The attack killed 108 of the 132 people on board.

On 23 September, passengers were boarding an aircraft at Sukhumi when it was struck and caught fire, leaving one crew member dead.

• Siberian Airlines Flight 1812 -- On October 4, 2001, a Siberian Airlines Tupelov 154 headed from Tel Aviv, Israel, to Novosibirsk, Russia, was shot down and plunged into the Black Sea, killing all 78 aboard, most of them Russian-born Israelis. The Ukrainian military denied at first but later admitted its military mistakenly shot down the plane during a training exercise.

• Cathay Pacific Airways C-54, July 1954 -- On 23 July 1954 a Cathay Pacific C-54 Skymaster carrying 19 passengers and crew was flying from Bangkok to Hong Kong when it was shot down by a mainland Chinese Army fighter plane off the coast of Hainan Island. Ten people died. China said it had mistaken the plane for a military aircraft on an attack mission.

So many innocent lives are lost when a war is waged against one country by the other. In the name of revolution, separatist tendencies have been coming to the fore and disturbing the peace balance of the world.

The question is how many more lives will have to sacrificed before we come to our senses?

[TonyGosling]

Deadliest plane crashes in recent history
Some of the world's worst air accidents since 1977
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jun/30/world-plane-crashes

www.theguardian.com, Tuesday 30 June 2009 09.37 BST
30 June 2009: Yemenia Airbus A310 en route to the Comoros islands crashes in the Indian Ocean – 153 people are on board and only one survives, a 14-year-old girl pulled from the sea.

1 June 2009: Air France Airbus A330 runs into thunderstorms over the Atlantic after leaving Brazil and disappears – all 228 people on board are killed.

17 July 2007: Tam Airlines flight 3045 crashes on landing during rain in Sao Paulo. All 187 on board killed.

19 February 2003: Iranian Revolutionary Guard military plane crashes into a mountain – 275 dead.

25 May 2002: China Airlines Boeing 747 breaks apart midair and crashes into the Taiwan Strait – 225 dead.

12 November 2001: American Airlines Airbus A300 crashes after takeoff from JFK airport into the New York City borough of Queens – 265 dead, including people on the ground.

30 January 2000: Kenya Airways jet (Airbus A310) crashes in sea shortly after take-off from Abidjan, Ivory Coast. 169 dead.

31 October 1999: EgyptAir Boeing 767 crashes off Nantucket; the NTSB blames actions by the co-pilot – 217 dead.

3 September 1998: Swissair flight 111 from New York to Geneva crashes in sea south-west of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, following fire in cockpit. All 229 passengers and crew killed.

16 February 1998: China Airlines Airbus A300 crashes on landing at airport in Taipei, Taiwan – 203 dead.

26 September 1997: Garuda Indonesia Airbus A300 crashes near airport in Medan, Indonesia – 234 dead.

6 August 1997: Korean Air Boeing 747-300 crashes on landing in Guam – 228 dead.

12 November 1996: Saudi Boeing 747 collides with Kazakh cargo plane near New Delhi – 349 dead.

17 July 1996: TWA Boeing 747 explodes and crashes into the Atlantic off Long Island, New York – 230 dead.

8 January 1996: 350 people die when a Russian-built Antonov-32 cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in the centre of the Zairean capital, Kinshasa.

6 June 1994: 160 people killed as Chinese airliner crashes minutes after take-off from Xian. Russian manufactured Tu-154 involved.

26 April 1994: China Airlines Airbus A300 crashes on landing at Nagoya Airport in Japan – 264 dead.

11 July 1991: All 261 people on board a chartered Canadian Nationair DC-8 carrying Muslim pilgrims back to Nigeria are killed when it crashes in flames at Jeddah airport.

12 December 1985: Arrow Air DC-8 crashes after takeoff from Newfoundland, Canada – 256 dead.

12 August 1985: Japan Air Lines Boeing 747 crashes into a mountainside after losing part of its tail fin – 520 dead in the world's worst single-plane disaster.

19 August 1980: Saudi Tristar makes emergency landing in Riyadh and bursts into flames – 301 dead.

28 November 1979: Air New Zealand DC-10 on a sightseeing trip crashes on Mount Erebus in the Antarctic, killing all 257 passengers and crew.

25 May 1979: American Airlines DC-10 crashes after takeoff from Chicago's O'Hare Airport – 275 dead.

1 January 1978: Air India Boeing 747 crashes into the ocean after takeoff from Mumbai – 213 dead.

27 March 1977: KLM 474, Pan American Boeing 747 collide on runway in Tenerife, Canary Islands – 583 dead in world's worst airline disaster.

3 March 1974: Turkish Airlines DC-10 en route to London crashes in a forest near Paris, killing all 345 people on board, nearly 200 of them British.

Source: World Almanac

[TonyGosling]

Good article bringing together aircrash history & how logos seem unable to survive - like Malaysian won't.

Is there a future for Malaysia Airlines after flights MH370 and MH17?
Airlines often rebrand after a crash – repainting livery, tweaking logos or even changing their names. But after the loss of two of its planes, it will not be easy for Malaysia Airlines to survive
Passenger jet disasters live long in the memory because their logos and corporate colours are splashed across TV screens and front pages … pictured, Malaysia Airlines planes on the runway.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/29/is-there-a-future-for-mal aysia-airlines

Karl West - Tuesday 29 July 2014 17.35 BST

It was a sultry summer evening as Alice Ephraimson-Abt, a bright 23-year-old, waited to board the Asian aeroplane that was to take her to start a new life halfway across the world. She grabbed her father, Hans, for one last hug before jumping on to the plane. Just hours later, the passenger jet was shot down by the Russian military. Two hundred and sixty nine innocent people perished in the attack.

That was in August 1983. But the downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 from New York to Seoul 31 years ago has distinct parallels with this month's killing of 298 passengers on Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, which was shot down over Ukraine, with many blaming pro-Russian rebel forces. Both incidents sparked global outrage and heightened tensions between Moscow and the west. Both incidents put the airlines involved under extreme commercial pressure. Korean Air Lines survived its brush with disaster, but not without huge changes to the way it looked and operated.

The human cost of airline tragedies is well documented. Hans Ephraimson-Abt, who passed away last year aged 91, went on to become a renowned air crash victims' crusader after setting up the Air Crash Victims Families Group. But the business cost of recovering from these shocks is often harder to quantify. A tarnished airline brand coupled with weak finances can spell doom. Both Trans World Airlines (TWA) and Pan American (PanAm) failed as a result of the wounds left by fatal air disasters.

The latest Malaysia Airlines tragedy comes just four months after an earlier plane, Flight MH370, disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 passengers on board. Jonny Clark, an aviation brand consultant, says passenger jet disasters live longer in the memory because their recognisable logos and corporate colours are splashed across TV news channels and newspaper front pages. "When a plane crashes, it's not the Boeing 777 that crashed," Clark says. "For the general public, it's the company that was flying the plane that crashed – in this case, Malaysia Airlines."

Recent reports suggested the management of Malaysia Airlines were weighing plans for a brand overhaul that would have included renaming the carrier, although Clark cautions that this could be "a nail in the coffin". "Passengers could see through a superficial name and brand change, especially after the global media coverage of both incidents."
Passengers could see through a superficial name and brand change, especially after the global media coverage of both incidents … pictured, wreckage from the Malaysia Airlines 777 shot down over Ukraine. Photograph: Alamy

He notes the example of Japan Airlines, whose reaction to a deadly crash in 1985 that killed 520 people was to rebrand its planes, scrapping the tsurumaru crane logo because "the world had seen blood on its tailfin". The concern was to prove misplaced: the public wanted Japan Airlines to keep the tsurumaru, and it was reinstated in 2011.

In the case of Malaysia Airlines, an expensive rebrand might not even be necessary. Clark notes that the carrier had already started repainting older planes with new livery earlier this year: a blue-and-red vertical stripe is now painted halfway along its planes, instead of the stripe that runs along the whole length of older models. Both of the striken planes still had the old livery, so none of the images of the wreckage in Ukraine, or the reconstructions of the missing plane, have featured the new corporate paint job.

After its 1983 tragedy, Korean Air Lines opted for a name change; within a year of the attack it had been renamed Korean Air. Perhaps more significantly in the eyes of customers, its planes were repainted from white to light blue, and the KAL tailfin logo – a red crane enclosed in a red circle – was replaced with a red-and-blue taegeuk, the Korean yin-yang symbol. The distinctive blue livery and tail fin remain to this day.

Despite the corporate makeover, Korean Air struggled for years to overcome its poor safety record. In 1999 it suffered three crashes in the space of six months, two of which involved fatalities. This time, there was to be no rebranding – the airline decided it had to completely change its internal operation. It swept away old management hierarchies, hired more non-military pilots and brought in Lufthansa, the German airline giant, to retrain its pilots. It took a long time, but Korean Air's revamp worked. It is now a top-ranked airline for safety and service.

The future of Malaysia Airlines, which has racked up huge financial losses in the last three years, is far less certain. Joseph D'Cruz, airline industry expert and professor at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, thinks the latest crash "will reduce sales to the point that it will not be financially viable".
Reconstructed wreckage from Pan Am Flight 103, which was bombed over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988. The airline collapsed in 1991. Photograph: Cynthia Johnson/Life/Getty

A collapse of an airline founded in October 1937 would be a severe blow to national pride. Malaysia Airlines, which is 69% owned by Khazanah Nasional, the state investment fund, flies around 37,000 passengers a day to 80 destinations worldwide and employs about 20,000 people. The mysterious disappearance of Flight MH370 tarnished the airline's reputation and hammered sales, particularly in China, where customers flocked to rival operators. Shares in the operator have plunged 28% in the last year, and the business is currently valued at £682.5m – around ten times less than IAG, the group that owns British Airways and Iberia.

Long before these crushing blows to public confidence, though, Malaysia Airlines was battered by high costs and falling sales, culminating in a £222m plunge into the red in 2013. It is expected to do even worse this year, after reporting a pre-tax loss of £82m [link to pdf download] in the first three months. The carrier has struggled to compete against low-cost entrants such as Indonesia's Lion Air and Malaysia's AirAsia, and cash-rich Middle Eastern powerhouses such as Etihad and Emirates. Douglas McNeill, investment director at City financier Charles Stanley, says: "We've seen in Europe that it is possible for legacy airlines to compete, but it takes many years and a lot of restructuring."

Malaysia Airlines was strongly criticised by travellers for the way it handled the disappearance of Flight MH370. The reaction to the second disaster has been better; it is offering refunds to any passengers who are too scared to fly on its planes. It is also waiving all fees and accepting requests to postpone or cancel flights scheduled for this year, even on non-refundable tickets. Whether the gesture is enough to win back the trust of its Chinese customers remains to be seen. The disappearance of MH370 sparked a 60% fall in sales from China in March.

Malaysia Airlines faces a long road to redemption. While some airlines have been able to move on from tragedy and regain customers' trust with little more than a fresh coat of paint, others have had to take far more drastic action. ValuJet, a low-cost US operator, rebranded itself as AirTran Airways after a crash in 1996, and managed to shed the perception that it had a bad safety record. Another that was forced to embrace a corporate makeover was SwissAir, following a crash in 1998. Three years later it became Swiss International Airlines. The brand revamp was more subtle than some: the airline, often known as Swiss, has kept its instantly recognisable tailfin logo of a white cross on a red background. During the seven-year project, it refreshed its planes' liveries, refurbished its premium-class lounges and upgraded cabins in its longhaul aircraft. Clark thinks Swiss was able to pull through because it retained the support of the public in Switzerland, who viewed the airline as a symbol of national pride; this, perhaps, offers some hope for Malaysia Airlines.
TWA never really recovered after one of its Boeing 747s crashed in 1996 just 12 minutes after its takeoff from New York, and the company filed for bankruptcy in 2001. Photograph: Alamy

Others were not so fortunate. TWA never really recovered after one of its Boeing 747s exploded and crashed in 1996 just 12 minutes after takeoff from New York's JFK airport on a flight bound for Rome; the carrier eventually filed for bankruptcy in 2001. Another airline that never managed to pull itself back from the brink was Pan Am. The carrier limped along for a few years after Libya's 1988 bombing of Flight 103 over Lockerbie in Scotland, which killed 270. It finally collapsed in 1991, following the outbreak of the first Gulf war, which sent fuel prices skyrocketing and depressed the global economy.

Despite current public concerns about air travel, it is still much safer to fly today than it has ever been. Until this year, Malaysia Airlines had just two fatal accidents in its history, and the last 19 years have been fatality-free. The website planecrashinfo.com shows there were between 25 and 35 air disasters a year throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Last year there were only two.

Yet D'Cruz reckons there are no good options left for Malaysia Airlines. The most likely saviour is the Malaysian government. Reports suggest Khazanah Nasional, the sovereign wealth fund, is working on an emergency rescue by buying up the shares it does not already own. Taking Malaysia Airlines off the stock market and into state ownership would pave the way for Khazanah to perform radical surgery.

Khazanah owns stakes in about 50 firms, valued at $40bn, across sectors as diverse as banks, telecoms, hospitals and theme parks. According to sources quoted by Reuters, the restructuring plan could be revealed next month. It would involve a sale of the profitable engineering arm, plus the airport services or budget airline subsidiaries. Other cost-saving measures would be driven through, including slashing its bloated payroll and installing a new management team. The airline and Khazanah commented that the reports were "speculation". The next move by Malaysia's power brokers will be decisive in determining whether the airline can indeed rise from the ashes.