Boeing 737-800 considered safest, but crashed a few times | Here's a list (2024)

Written by Harsh*t Sabarwal | Edited by Sohini Goswami, New Delhi

A passenger aircraft of China Eastern Airlines crashed in the southwestern province of Guangxi. As many as 132 people - 123 passengers and nine crew members – were on board. The aircraft was a Boeing Co. 737-800.

It is feared that all the people on board might be dead, though there is no official confirmation yet, and the Chinese authorities are intensifying their search and rescue operations to locate survivors.

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According to experts, the model (737-800) is considered to be the safest aircraft ever made. The 737-800 belongs to the aviation giant’s next-generation aircraft which also includes 600, 700, and 900.

“The 737NG has been in operation for 25 years and has an excellent safety record,” said Paul Hayes, director of air safety and insurance at Cirium. Speaking about Monday’s accident, Hayes said, “I’m not going to speculate on what happened but if the Flightfadar24 logs are accurate, something seems to have happened abruptly and the plane nose-dived from cruising altitude.”

Here is a list of some of the deadliest crashes in Boeing’s 737- 800 aircraft:

August 2020: Air India Express Flight 1344

The flight was a part of the Narendra Modi government’s Vande Bharat Mission to bring back Indian nationals stranded abroad due to the Covid-19 pandemic. On August 7 2020, it was coming to the Kozhikode airport in Kerala from Dubai amid heavy rains with 190 people onboard. The aircraft had aborted two landing attempts. On the third attempt, the aircraft shot off the runway and skidded off and broke into two pieces. Twenty people, including both pilots and four children, were killed. This was the deadliest commercial aviation disaster in India in a decade.

March 2016: Flydubai Flight 981

The flight crashed during an aborted landing. Sixty-two people, including seven crew members, were on board the flight which was flying from Dubai to Russia.

May 2010: Air India Express Flight 812

Preliminary findings of the crash on May 22 revealed that the pilot landed the aircraft far beyond the touchdown point in the Mangalore airport. The flight was coming from Dubai with 166 people, including six crew members. All crew members and 152 passengers were killed and only eight passengers survived.

January 2020: Iran missile attack on Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752

The flight was from Iran’s capital Tehran to Ukraine’s capital Kyiv. As many as 176 passengers, including the crew, were in the flight. The aircraft was shot down minutes after takeoff from the Tehran International Airport, by an Iranian surface-to-air missile. There were no survivors. The Iranian government initially denied its role in the attack but later admitted the same saying that it mistook the aircraft for a cruise missile.

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