Major aviation accidents of 2024: A year in review

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Dec 30 (Reuters) – The crash of a Jeju Air Boeing 737-800 in Seoul on Sunday resulted in the tragic loss of 179 lives, marking the deadliest air disaster on South Korean soil. Here is a summary of some of the most severe aviation accidents of 2024, listed by their severity:

South Korea

Jeju Air international flight 7C2216, which originated in Bangkok, Thailand, and was bound for Seoul, crashed on Dec. 29, resulting in the deaths of all 175 passengers and four of the six crew members.

Brazil

A Brazilian police van is parked alongside the smoke-wreathed wreckage of a building that was hit by the plane

Voepass regional flight 2283, an ATR-72 turboprop originating from Cascavel and headed to Sao Paulo, crashed in the town of Vinhedo on Aug. 11, claiming the lives of all 62 individuals on board. In a separate incident, a twin-engine Piper PA-42-1000 carrying 10 people crashed into shops in the center of Gramado, a tourist city in southern Brazil, on Dec. 22. Everyone on board perished, and 17 people on the ground were injured.

Kazakhstan

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on Sunday that a passenger plane that crashed last week, killing 38 people, had been damaged by shooting from the ground in Russia, and he said some in Russia had lied about the cause of the disaster. President Vladimir Putin on Saturday apologised to Aliyev for Wednesday's "tragic incident" in Russian airspace involving the plane after Russian air defences engaged Ukrainian attack drones. A Kremlin statement did not say Russia had shot down the plane, only noting a criminal case had been opened. Advertisement · Scroll to continue "Our plane was shot down by accident," Aliyev told state television on Sunday, adding that the plane had come under some sort of electronic jamming and had then been shot at while it was approaching the southern Russian city of Grozny. "Unfortunately, in the first three days we heard only absurd versions from Russia," Aliyev said, citing statements in Russia that attributed the crash to birds or the explosion of some sort of gas cylinder. Advertisement · Scroll to continue "We witnessed clear attempts to cover up the matter," said the Azerbaijani leader, who has close ties to Russia and was educated at one of Moscow's top universities. Aliyev said he wanted Russia to accept it was guilty of downing the plane and to punish those responsible for fatally damaging the aircraft. Putin and Aliyev held another telephone call on Sunday, the Kremlin said. It gave no details but on Saturday it said that both civilian and military specialists were being questioned about what had taken place. Azerbaijan Airlines Flight J2-8243 crashed on Wednesday in a ball of fire near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan after diverting from southern Russia where Ukrainian drones were attacking several cities. The extremely rare publicised apology from Putin on Saturday is the closest Moscow has come to accepting some blame for the disaster. Four sources with knowledge of the preliminary findings of Azerbaijan's investigation into the disaster told Reuters on Thursday that Russian air defences had mistakenly shot it down. BURIALS Aliyev's remarks came as Azerbaijan paid tribute to the pilots and passengers of the plane. Captain Igor Kshnyakin and co-pilot Alexander Kalyaninov, both ethnic Russians with Azerbaijan citizenship, and Hokuma Aliyeva, a flight attendant, were given full honours at a ceremony at the Alley of Honour in central Baku attended by Aliyev and his wife, Mehriban. The pilots have been lauded in Azerbaijan for landing in a way which allowed 29 people to survive but led to their own deaths. "The pilots were experienced and knew they would not survive this crash landing," Aliyev said, praising them for sacrificing themselves by putting the nose down first in an attempt to save some of the passengers. "In order to save the passengers, they acted with great heroism and as a result of this there were survivors," he said. The Embraer (EMBR3.SA), opens new tab passenger jet had flown from Azerbaijan's capital Baku to Grozny, in Russia's southern Chechnya region, before veering off hundreds of miles across the Caspian Sea. Azerbaijan's presidential office said the pilots had battled to control the plane - desperately trying to find a landing spot. With holes in the fuselage, some crew injured, passengers praying for their lives in a de-pressurised cabin and the plane spiralling out of control, the pilots flew across the Caspian Sea towards their death in a crash landing. The Alley of Honour is Azerbaijan's most sacred modern burial ground - where prominent politicians, poets and scientists are laid to rest, including Heydar Aliyev, father of the current president. Captain Kshnyakin's daughter, Anastasia Kshnyakina, said her father was a dedicated pilot who took his responsibilities to his passengers extremely seriously. "My father always said: when I take off, I am responsible not only for my life, but also for the lives of all passengers and crew members," Kshnyakina said. "With his last flight, he proved what a true hero should be."

Azerbaijan Airlines international flight J2-8243, an Embraer E190 originating from Baku, Azerbaijan, and heading to Grozny, Russia, crashed near Aktau in Kazakhstan on Dec. 25. The crash killed 39 people, while 29 survived.

Nepal

The Saurya Airlines plane caught fire at the airport in Kathmandu, Nepal on July 24, 2024.

A CRJ-200 aircraft belonging to Nepal’s Saurya Airlines crashed and caught fire while taking off from Kathmandu to Pokhara airport on July 24. The accident resulted in the deaths of 18 people, with one survivor, the captain.

Malawi

Malawi’s Vice President Saulos Klaus Chilima and nine others, including former first lady Shanil Dzimbiri, died on June 10 when the military plane they were traveling in crashed en route from Lilongwe to Mzuzu.

Thailand

A rescue team works at a site of a small aircraft crash in Chachoengsao province, Thailand, on August 22, 2024.

Domestic charter flight TFT209, a Cessna Caravan C208B registered to Thai Flying Service Co, crashed 100 km southeast of Bangkok on Aug. 23. All nine people on board were killed.

Iran

A helicopter carrying Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi takes off, near the Iran-Azerbaijan border, on May 19.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and six other passengers and crew members of a U.S.-made Bell 212 helicopter died in a crash on May 19 in the mountainous Varzeqan region, near the Azerbaijan border.

Canada

A Northwestern Air plane carrying workers from global miner Rio Tinto crashed near Fort Smith in Canada’s remote Northwest Territories on Jan. 23. The crash resulted in the deaths of six people, including four passengers and two crew members, while one passenger survived.

Japan

On Jan. 2, a Japan Airlines (JAL) plane collided with a smaller Coast Guard aircraft on the runway of Tokyo’s Haneda airport. While all 379 people on the JAL Airbus A350-941 flight escaped the burning airliner, five of the six crew members on the smaller aircraft were killed.

Singapore

A Singapore Airlines Boeing 777-300ER plane from London to Singapore encountered severe turbulence on May 21, causing one passenger to die of a suspected heart attack and injuring 30 others. The plane was forced to land in Bangkok.

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