Disasters Timeline

The airplane, named "Mainliner Utah", arrived in Chicago at 09:52 en route from Los Angeles to New York. After a 52-minute turnaround, the DC-6 departed for New York. The airplane climbed...

Fantastic but true." With those three words, spoken 60 years ago this month, the managing director of Cathay Pacific Airways introduced Hong Kong to the horror of skyjacking. "Cathay Pac...

Northwest Airlines Flight 421 was a domestic scheduled passenger flight from Chicago, Illinois to Minneapolis, Minnesota that crashed on 29 August 1948. The Martin 2-0-2 aircraft, operate...

The Bukken Bruse disaster was the crash of a flying boat upon landing at Hommelvika in Malvik municipality, nearby Trondheim, Trøndelag, Norway, on October 2, 1948. The disaster killed 19...

The earthquake struck at 2:17 in the morning on 6 October 1948. The epicenter of the earthquake was located near the small village Gara-Gaudan, 25 kilometers southwest of Ashgabat. The ea...

Take-off from Schiphol was planned at 20:00 on 20 October 1948 for a flight to New York via Prestwick, with as alternative Shannon, Ireland. The Constellation PH-TEN Nijmegen, with thirty...

Published by the People's Communication Press on November 1997, "A Brief History of Navigation on the Yangtze River" says the Jiangya ship, altogether with 3253 passengers aboard, suddenl...

The disappearance of the Airborne Transporter DC-3 airliner, NC16002 occurred the night of December 28, 1948 near the end of a scheduled flight from San Juan, Puerto Rico to Miami, Florid...

G-AGRE Star Ariel was an Avro Tudor Mark IVB passenger aircraft owned and operated by British South American Airways (BSAA) which disappeared without trace over the Atlantic Ocean while o...

The death toll in the St. Anthony's hospital fire, which investigators believed may have been fed by fresh paint and varnish, was set at 66 today by the Catholic Chancery office. The k...

The plane was taking home the Turin soccer team after a match in Lisbon. The Fiat plane took off at 09:52 and made a refueling stop at Barcelona at 13:15. Weather in the Turin area was ba...

Ambato was completely destroyed by a large earthquake on the afternoon of 5 August 1949. Tragically, the entire city and surrounding villages were reduced to rubble; in total 50 towns and...

On this date in 1951, Albert Guay was hanged in Canada for one of the earliest commercial airline attacks — bombing a Canadian Pacific Airline flight to murder his wife. Stuck in a lov...

About 2:30 a.m. on the morning of the 17th, a passenger discovered a small fire in a linen closet. Attempts to extinguish the fire proved futile and the flames spread quickly through the ...

Eastern Air Lines Flight 537, registration N88727, was a Douglas DC-4 aircraft en route from Boston, Massachusetts to Washington, D.C. via intermediate points on November 1, 1949. NX-2692...

The Hurum air disaster was an Aero Holland plane crash in Hurum southwest of Oslo, Norway as it was approaching Fornebu Airport on 20 November 1949. The plane, a Douglas DC-3 with tail...

American Airlines Flight 157, a Douglas DC-6, was flying on November 29, 1949 from New York City bound for Mexico City with 46 passengers and crew. After one engine failed in mid-flight, ...

A fire in the mental ward of Mercy Hospital in Davenport, Iowa killed 41 people today. "The flames spread rapidly through the 60-year-old brick structure, one of four buildings comprising...

On 12 March 1950, an Avro 689 Tudor V owned by Airflight Limited and being operated under the Fairflight name, took off from Dublin Airport in Ireland, on a private passenger flight to Ll...

Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 2501 was a DC-4 propliner operating its daily transcontinental service between New York City and Seattle when it disappeared on the night of June 23, 1950...

TWA Flight 903 from Bombay, India to New York was carried out by TWA's Constellation "Star of Maryland". Departure from Bombay was at 08:34, August 30 and arrival at Cairo at 22:17. A com...

1950 November 3, "Malabar Princess", a Lockheed Constellation of the Air India company, registered VT-CQP, was connecting Bombay to London via Cairo and Geneva, the next stopover. It ...

The Tete de I'Obiou accident was an airliner crash in France on 13 November 1950. Curtiss Reid Flying Services had been operating a scheduled service between Paris and Rome since 1945. On...

It is 6:32. The train bound for Babylon, after leaving Penn Station four minutes behind the Hempstead train, now comes barreling down the tracks at about 65 mph. Suddenly, with a cat...

Mount Lamington began to erupt on the night of 18 January 1951. Three days later there was a violent eruption when a large part of the northern side of the mountain was blown away and dev...

A temporary wooden trestle adjacent to Fulton Street in Woodbridge had come into use that very afternoon so that labourers building the New Jersey Turnpike could work on the main line. Ei...

On 27 March 1951 a Douglas Dakota 3 cargo aircraft registered G-AJVZ operated by Air Transport Charter en route from Ringway Airport, Manchester, England, to Nutts Corner Airport, Antrim,...

A disastrous train fire occurred at the Sakuragi-cho Station on the Keihin-Tohoku line when a MOHA-63 train touched a sagging overhead wire and sparks caused a fire, killing 106 and injur...

Cubana de Aviación Flight 493, registration CU-T188, was a Douglas DC-4 en route from Miami, Florida, United States, to Havana, Cuba, on April 25, 1951. A US Navy Beechcraft SNB-1 Kansan,...

The Johannesburg to New York City flight was on the Accra, Gold Coast (now Ghana), to Monrovia, Liberia leg of its journey. At 0301h during a pre-dawn approach to Monrovia's Roberts Field...

After completing its first two segments, Flight 610 departed Salt Lake City at 12:11 a.m. en route to its next destination of Denver. At around 1:47 a.m. Flight 610 reported to traffic co...

At 04:25 Flight 615 was cleared for a straight-in approach on the southeast course of the Oakland radio range from Newark. At 04:27 the flight reported leaving Newark inbound to Oakland. ...

Flight 6780 originated at Buffalo, New York, for Newark, New Jersey, with stops scheduled at Rochester, New York, and Syracuse, New York. The first two legs of the flight were uneventful....

Flight 202 originated at Buenos Aires, destination New York, with en route stops scheduled at Montevideo, Uruguay; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Port of Spain, Trinidad. The flight departed...

American Flight 910 took off from San Francisco at 23:05 for a flight to Dallas. At 06:56 the following morning, a Temco Swift airplane (N3858K, cn 3558) departed Denton for Dallas-Love F...

The hope that 1952 would prove to be a good year from the point of view of train accident casualties has been extinguished by the disaster at Harrow & Wealdstone Station, L.M.R., on Octob...

The Great Smog of '52 or Big Smoke was a severe air pollution event that affected London in December 1952. A period of cold weather combined with an anticyclone and windless conditions, c...

A storm formed south of Iceland on January 30th, 1953 and it was not a cause for concern at the time because the barometric pressure was not unusually low. Hurricane-force winds blowing f...

A car ferry has sunk in the Irish Sea in one of the worst gales in living memory claiming the lives of more than 130 passengers and crew. The Princess Victoria, a British Railways car ...

A series of tornadoes in Peach, Houstoun, Marion, Twiggs and Bibb Counties left 310 people injured, 20 people dead (some sources say 19) and more than 15 million dollars in property damag...

Flight 723 was cleared for a contact approach to runway 10. On final approach, while still miles west of the airport, the Convair descended too low, and, at an altitude of 308 feet (94 m)...

At 10.21 p.m. on Christmas Eve 1953 the Wellington–Auckland night express plunged into the flooded Whangaehu River at Tangiwai, 10 kilometres west of Waiouru in the central North Island. ...

BOAC Flight 781 departed Rome, Italy on a flight to London, England. While climbing through 27,000 feet, the plane experienced a sudden in-flight break-up and crashed into the Mediterrane...

The Blons avalanches in Austria was one of the worst mass burials by avalanche in recorded history. This happened on February 10 and February 11. The small village of Blons near Bluden...

On 8 April 1954, Flight 201 departed Rome for Cairo and Johannesburg. The flight was used with a leased British Overseas Airways Corporation De Havilland Comet. The aircraft crashed off t...

Typhoon No. 15, Marie, which had blown through Honshū, was in the Sea of Japan at 12:00 on September 26, 1954, proceeding Northeast at a speed of more than 100 kilometers an hour. It was ...

Leaving a death toll in Hati of more than 200 and an injured list of at least 500, according to unofficial reports reaching here, Hurricane Hazel moved toward the island of Mayaguana in t...

The Air-India Constellation (named "Kashmir Princess") departed Hong Kong at 04:25 GMT for a flight to Jakarta. On board were Chinese and east European delegates, mainly journalists, to a...

As the race entered its third hour the cars were breaking records at every lap when Jaguar Driver Mike Hawthorn received a signal from his pit crew to stop for gas. As he braked, an Austi...

Perhaps only the Soviets could display such gall, but other countries have also been guilty of firing on commercial flights. In 1955, two Bulgarian MiG-15s fitted with cannons attacked an...