Europe's Main Air Crashes in Past 10 Years
A German budget airliner crashed in the French Alps on Tuesday with 150 people on board feared dead in the worst air disaster in mainland France in 40 years.
The tragedy came nearly 15 years after Concorde flight 4590 from Paris to New York crashed just after taking off on July 25, 2000, killing 113 people, sounding the death knell for commercial supersonic travel.
In March 1974, 346 people were killed in a crash shortly after a Turkish Airlines plane took off from Paris.
In December 1981, 180 people perished when a Yugoslav plane hit a mountain in the French Mediterranean island of Corsica.
The deadliest air disaster in history remains the collision in March 1977 between two Boeing 747s in Tenerife in the Spanish Canary Islands, in which 583 people were killed.
Below are the worst plane crashes in Europe in the past decade.
- 2015 -
- March 24: FRANCE - An Airbus A320 airliner belonging to Lufthansa's low-cost Germanwings crashes en route from Barcelona to Duesseldorf in the French Alps, with France saying all 150 people on board, including Germans and Spaniards, were dead.
- 2014 -
- July 17: UKRAINE - Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, a Boeing 777 flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, is shot down over a rebel-held area of Ukraine, killing 298 people, including 193 Dutch. Kiev and pro-Russian rebels exchange blame for the deadly attack.
- 2013 -
- November 17: RUSSIA - A Boeing 737 owned by Russian company Tatarstan crashes at Kazan airport while traveling from Moscow, killing 50 passengers and crew.
- 2010 -
- April 10: RUSSIA - A Tupolev-154 Polish air force plane crashes near the city of Smolensk, killing 96 people, including Polish president Lech Kaczynski, his wife and several other officials.
- 2008 -
- August 20: SPAIN - An MD-82 plane owned by Spanish low-cost company Spanair crashes and turns into a fireball while taking off at Madrid for the Canary Islands, killing 154 people.
- September 14: RUSSIA - An Aeroflot-operated Boeing 737 crashes near Perm in the Ural mountains, killing 88 people.
- 2007 -
- November 30: TURKEY - A McDonnell Douglas 83 operated by Turkish low-cost airline Atlasjet crashes in mountains in the southwest, killing 57 passengers and crew.
- 2006 -
- May 3: RUSSIA - An Airbus 320 operated by Armenian company Armavia crashes into the Black Sea, killing 113 people.
- July 9: RUSSIA - A Russian Airbus crashes while landing at Irkutsk in Siberia, killing 125 people.
- August 22: UKRAINE - A Russian Tupolev belonging to Pulkovo crashes in eastern Ukraine, killing 170 people.