WThe Cathay Pacific Douglas DC-4 shootdown happened on 23 July 1954, when a Cathay Pacific Airways C-54 Skymaster airliner was shot down by fighter planes of the People's Republic of China. The event occurred off the coast of Hainan Island, where the plane was en route from Bangkok to Hong Kong, killing 10 of 19 passengers and crew on board.
WThe 1985 Aeroflot Antonov An-12 shoot down occurred on November 25, 1985, in Angola during the Angolan Civil War. An Aeroflot Antonov An-12BP cargo aircraft operated by the Soviet Air Force flying from Cuito Cuanavale to Luanda was shot down, allegedly by South African Special Forces, and crashed approximately 43 kilometres (27 mi) east of Menongue in Angola's Cuando Cubango province. The incident took place in the aftermath of the Soviet Union-backed People's Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola's (FAPLA) operation 2 Congresso do Partido conducted against units of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola. The transport was carrying eight crew members, 13 passengers and two tank diesel engines in need of repairs. According to eyewitnesses from the local populace and investigative reports the aircraft was shot down by a surface-to-air missile (SAM). All people on board the aircraft died in the crash.
WAeroflot Flight 902 was a passenger flight on a scheduled domestic service from Khabarovsk to Moscow, with intermediate stops at Irkutsk and Omsk, Russia. The flight was operated by a Tu-104A aircraft. On 30 June 1962, with 76 passengers and 8 crew members aboard, the flight departed Irkutsk on schedule, and made a timely report 50 kilometers from Krasnoyarsk. A few minutes later, an agitated voice later identified as that of the co-pilot made an incoherent emergency transmission with a background of an unusual noise. Repeated subsequent attempts to contact the flight failed.
WAir Rhodesia Flight 825 was a scheduled passenger flight that was shot down by the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) on 3 September 1978, during the Rhodesian Bush War. The aircraft involved, a Vickers Viscount named the Hunyani, was flying the last leg of Air Rhodesia's regular scheduled service from Victoria Falls to the capital Salisbury, via the resort town of Kariba.
WAir Rhodesia Flight 827, the Umniati, was a scheduled flight between Kariba and Salisbury that was shot down on 12 February 1979 by Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) guerrillas using a Strela 2 missile soon after take-off. The circumstances were very similar to that of Air Rhodesia Flight 825 five months earlier. To date, it remains the deadliest aviation incident in Rhodesia.
WOn 22 November 2003, shortly after takeoff from Baghdad, Iraq, an Airbus A300B4-200F cargo plane, registered OO-DLL and owned by European Air Transport, was struck on the left wing by a surface-to-air missile while on a scheduled flight to Muharraq, Bahrain. Severe wing damage resulted in a fire and complete loss of hydraulic flight control systems. Because outboard left wing fuel tank 1A was full at takeoff, there was no fuel-air vapour explosion. Liquid jet fuel dropped away as 1A disintegrated. Inboard fuel tank 1 was pierced and leaking.
W1985 Bakhtar Afghan Airlines Antonov An-26 shootdown was on 4 September 1985 when a Bakhtar Afghan Airlines Antonov An-26 on a scheduled internal flight from Kandahar to Farah was shot down by a ground-to-air missile. The aircraft had departed from Kandahar Airport and had circled twice close to the airport to gain height and then set course for Farah Airport, it was at a height of 3800 metres and 18.5 km west of Khandahar when it was shot down and destroyed by a ground-to-air missile. All five crew and 47 passengers were killed.
WBOAC Flight 777-A was a scheduled British Overseas Airways Corporation civilian airline flight from Portela Airport in Lisbon, Portugal to Whitchurch Airport near Bristol, England. On 1 June 1943, the Douglas DC-3 serving the flight was attacked by eight German Junkers Ju 88 fighter planes and crashed into the Bay of Biscay, killing all 17 on board. There were several notable passengers, among them actor Leslie Howard.
WCorporate Air Services HPF821 was a transport aircraft delivering weapons via clandestine airdrop to the Nicaraguan Contras which was shot down over Nicaragua on 5 October 1986 by a surface-to-air missile. Two U.S. pilots, Wallace "Buzz" Sawyer and William Cooper, and the Nicaraguan Nationalists radio operator Freddy Vilches died when the Fairchild C-123 Provider was shot down by a Sandinista soldier using an SA-7 shoulder-launched missile, while Eugene Hasenfus, the U.S. "kicker" responsible for pushing the cargo out of the aircraft, survived by parachuting to safety. The aircraft was carrying "60 collapsible AK-47 rifles, 50,000 AK-47 rifle cartridges, several dozen RPG-7 grenade launchers and 150 pairs of jungle boots".
WDakota VT-CLA was a Douglas C-47 Skytrain carrying medical supplies to the de facto republican government of Indonesia at Yogyakarta on 29 July 1947.
WThe 2020 East African Express Airways Brasilia crash was an aviation accident involving an East African Express Airways Embraer EMB 120 Brasilia that was on approach to Berdale on a chartered cargo flight from Baidoa Airport, Somalia on 4 May 2020 when it was allegedly shot down by ground troops of the Ethiopian National Defense Force. All 6 occupants, including four non-revenue passengers and two crew, were killed. The plane was carrying medical supplies to assist with the COVID-19 pandemic in Somalia, as well as mosquito nets.
WEl Al Flight 402 was an international passenger flight from London to Tel Aviv via Vienna and Istanbul. On 27 July 1955, the flight, operated by a Lockheed Constellation registered as 4X-AKC, strayed into then-Communist Bulgarian airspace and was attacked by two Bulgarian MiG-15 jet fighters, crashing near Petrich. All 7 crew and 51 passengers on board the airliner were killed. The crash took place amid highly strained relations between the Eastern Bloc and the Western Bloc and was the deadliest involving the Constellation up to that time.
WThe Gujarat Beechcraft incident was an event during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965. On 19 September that year an American F-86 Sabre jet fighter of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) shot down an Indian-registered civilian Beechcraft Model 18 twin-engine light aircraft. Balwantrai Mehta, who at the time was the chief minister of the Indian state of Gujarat, was killed in the attack along with his wife, three members of his staff, a journalist and two crew members.
WIran Air Flight 655 was a scheduled passenger flight from Tehran to Dubai via Bandar Abbas that was shot down on 3 July 1988 by an SM-2MR surface-to-air missile fired from USS Vincennes, a guided-missile cruiser of the United States Navy. The aircraft, an Airbus A300, was destroyed and all 290 people on board were killed. The jet was hit while flying over Iran's territorial waters in the Persian Gulf, along the flight's usual route, shortly after departing Bandar Abbas International Airport, the flight's stopover location. The incident occurred during the final stages of the Iran–Iraq War, which had been continuing for nearly eight years. Vincennes had entered Iranian territory after one of its helicopters drew warning fire from Iranian speedboats operating within Iranian territorial limits.
WOn 27 June 1980, Itavia Flight 870, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 passenger jet en route from Bologna to Palermo, Italy, crashed into the Tyrrhenian Sea between the islands of Ponza and Ustica, killing all 81 people on board. Known in Italy as the Ustica massacre, the disaster led to numerous investigations, legal actions and accusations, and continues to be a source of controversy, including claims of conspiracy by the Italian government and others. The Prime Minister of Italy at the time, Francesco Cossiga, attributed the crash to being accidentally shot down during a dogfight between Libyan and NATO fighter jets. A 1994 report argued the cause of the crash was a terrorist bomb, one in a years-long series of bombings in Italy. On 23 January 2013, Italy's top criminal court ruled that there was "abundantly" clear evidence that the flight was brought down by a missile, but the perpetrators are still missing.
WKaleva was a civilian Junkers Ju 52 passenger and transport plane, belonging to the Finnish carrier Aero O/Y. The aircraft was shot down by two Soviet Ilyushin DB-3 bombers during peacetime between the Soviet Union and Finland on 14 June 1940, while en route from Tallinn to Helsinki, killing all nine on board. The flight number for the route was 1631.
WOn 3 March 1942, PK-AFV, a Douglas DC-3-194 airliner operated by KNILM, was shot down over Western Australia by Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service fighter aircraft, resulting in the deaths of four passengers and the loss of diamonds worth an estimated A£150,000–300,000. It is widely believed that the diamonds were stolen following the crash, although no-one has ever been convicted of a crime in relation to their disappearance.
WKorean Air Lines Flight 007 was a scheduled Korean Air Lines flight from New York City to Seoul via Anchorage, Alaska. On September 1, 1983, the South Korean airliner servicing the flight was shot down by a Soviet Su-15 interceptor. The Boeing 747 airliner was en route from Anchorage to Seoul, but due to a navigational mistake made by the KAL crew the airliner deviated from its original planned route and flew through Soviet prohibited airspace about the time of a U.S. aerial reconnaissance mission. The Soviet Air Forces treated the unidentified aircraft as an intruding U.S. spy plane, and destroyed it with air-to-air missiles, after firing warning shots which were likely not seen by the KAL pilots. The Korean airliner eventually crashed in the sea near Moneron Island west of Sakhalin in the Sea of Japan. All 269 passengers and crew aboard were killed, including Larry McDonald, a United States Representative from Georgia. The Soviets found the wreckage under the sea on September 15, and found the flight recorders in October, but this information was kept secret until 1993.
WKorean Air Lines Flight 902 was a scheduled Korean Air Lines flight from Paris to Seoul via Anchorage. On 20 April 1978, the Soviet air defense shot down the aircraft serving the flight, a Boeing 707, near Murmansk, Soviet Union, after the aircraft violated Soviet airspace.
WThe Kweilin incident occurred on August 24, 1938 when a Douglas DC-2 airliner carrying 18 passengers and crew was destroyed by Japanese aircraft in China. There were fourteen fatalities. It was the first civilian airliner in history to be shot down by hostile aircraft. The pilot was American and the crew and passengers Chinese. As it was unprecedented for a civilian aircraft to be attacked, there was international diplomatic outrage over the incident. In the United States, it helped solidify the popular view that Japan was morally wrong in their war against China, but the incident was not enough to spur the US into action against Japan despite Chinese entreaties. The Kweilin was re-built, and destroyed by the Japanese a second time two years later.
WLibyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 was a regularly scheduled flight from Tripoli to Cairo via Benghazi. In 1973 a Boeing 727-200 that was serving this flight was shot down by Israeli fighter jets.
WThe 1998 Lignes Aériennes Congolaises crash refers to a non-scheduled domestic Kindu–Kinshasa passenger service that was shot down by rebel forces, just after takeoff from Kindu Airport, during climbout, on 10 October 1998. All 41 occupants of the aircraft perished in the incident.
WLionair Flight 602 was a Lionair Antonov An-24RV which fell into the sea off the north-western coast of Sri Lanka on 29 September 1998. The aircraft departed Jaffna Airport with 48 passengers and a crew of seven; it disappeared from radar screens ten minutes into the flight. Initial reports indicated that the plane had been shot down by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam terrorists using a MANPADS, which has since been confirmed. All aboard were presumed killed.
WMalaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) was a scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that was shot down on 17 July 2014 while flying over eastern Ukraine. All 283 passengers and 15 crew were killed. Contact with the aircraft, a Boeing 777-200ER, was lost when it was about 50 km (31 mi) from the Ukraine–Russia border, and wreckage of the aircraft fell near Hrabove in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, 40 km (25 mi) from the border. It was Malaysia Airlines' second aircraft loss during 2014, after the disappearance of Flight 370 on 8 March. The shoot-down occurred in the War in Donbass, during the Battle in Shakhtarsk Raion, in an area controlled by pro-Russian rebels. The Ukrainian Air Force had suffered losses from increasingly sophisticated air defence weaponry. Immediately after contact with the aircraft was lost, the rebel militia in Donetsk claimed to have shot down a Ukrainian An-26 military transport airplane. When it became apparent that the wreckage that fell near Hrabove was from a civilian airliner, the separatists withdrew this claim and denied shooting down any aircraft.
WThe 2007 TransAVIAexport Airlines Il-76 crash refers to an Ilyushin Il-76 cargo aircraft operated by that Belarusian airline that crashed in the outskirts of Mogadishu, Somalia, on 23 March 2007, during the Battle of Mogadishu. The plane was carrying repair equipment and humanitarian aid. According to a spokesperson for the transport ministry of Belarus, the aircraft was shot down. However, the Somali government insisted that the crash was accidental. A crew of eleven on board the aircraft perished in the accident.
WOperation Tarnegol was an Israeli Air Force operation carried out on the eve of the 1956 Suez Crisis. It witnessed an Israeli Gloster Meteor NF.13 intercept and destroy an Egyptian Ilyushin Il-14 carrying high-ranking members of the Egyptian General Staff en route from Syria to Egypt.
WPolar 3 was a Dornier Do 228 owned and operated by the Alfred Wegener Institute that was shot down south of Dakhla, Western Sahara by guerrillas of the Polisario Front on 24 February 1985.
WThe 1942 Qantas Short Empire shoot-down was an incident that occurred in the early days of the Pacific War during World War II. A Short Empire flying boat airliner, Corio, operated by Qantas was shot down by Japanese aircraft off the coast of West Timor, Dutch East Indies, on 30 January 1942, killing 13 of the occupants.
WSiberia Airlines Flight 1812 was a commercial flight shot down by the Ukrainian Air Force over the Black Sea on 4 October 2001, en route from Tel Aviv, Israel to Novosibirsk, Russia. The aircraft, a Soviet-made Tupolev Tu-154, carried an estimated 66 passengers and 12 crew members. Most of the passengers were Israelis visiting relatives in Russia. There were no survivors. The crash site is about 190 km west-southwest of the Black Sea resort of Sochi and 140 km north of the Turkish coastal town of Fatsa and 350 km south-southeast of Feodosiya in Crimea. The accident took place at the time of the combat missile launches during the joint Ukrainian-Russian military air defence exercises. The exercises were held at the Russian-controlled training ground of the 31st Russian Black Sea Fleet Research center on Opuk cape near the city of Kerch (Crimea). Ukraine eventually admitted that it might have caused the crash, probably by an errant S-200 missile fired by its armed forces. Ukraine paid $15 million to surviving family members of the 78 victims.
WOn 16 August 1986 a Fokker F-27 Friendship 400M was performing a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Malakal to Khartoum in Sudan, when it was shot down by the SPLA militants. All 60 people on board the aircraft were killed. As of May 2014, the shootdown remains the deadliest incident involving a Fokker F-27 and the deadliest aviation incident in South Sudan.
WThe 1983 TAAG Angola Airlines Boeing 737 crash occurred just after a Boeing 737-200 took off from Lubango Airport in Lubango, Angola, on a regular domestic service as Flight DT 462 to Quatro de Fevereiro Airport in Luanda on November 8, 1983. The aircraft had 126 passengers and four crew on board.
WFrom 20 to 23 September 1993 during the Sukhumi massacre as part of the war in Abkhazia, separatists in Sukhumi, Abkhazia blocked the Georgian troop's overland supply routes.
WUkraine International Airlines Flight 752 (PS752) was a scheduled international passenger flight from Tehran to Kyiv operated by Ukraine International Airlines (UIA). On 8 January 2020, the Boeing 737-800 operating the route was shot down shortly after takeoff from Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC). All 176 passengers and crew died.