The 10 most dangerous aircraft ever made
Some planes have hidden flaws.
They managed to sneak through the design and testing stages without all their vulnerabilities being discovered and it’s left to the crew, and in some cases passengers, to deal with the often tragic fallout.
The aircraft listed here were, with one exception, more dangerous than they should have been, but in most cases, this was also a sign of the period in which they were operating.
For example, entries 2-10 could have been filled with jet fighters from the 1950s and 60s which probably would have been more statistically accurate, but would also have got a bit predictable. Regardless, here are ten aircraft you probably should avoid flying:
10: Tupolev Tu-104
Entering service during the British Comet’s awkward pause in operations the Soviet Tu-104 was the world’s only jet airliner for a brief period. What it wasn’t was particularly safe. The controls were heavy, it was unstable, and the highly swept wings had adverse handling characteristics approaching the stalling speed.
These quirks might be acceptable in a strategic bomber but were not ideal in an airliner. The tendency to pitch up violently, or enter an uncontrollable dive at the stall led to pilots flying the approach into airports 30mph faster than the intended speed often creating problems that the brake chute couldn’t solve. 1958 saw three aircraft lost in accidents with subsequent years seeing a steady drum beat of losses.
32 aircraft were lost in accidents before the type was withdrawn from commercial use, while another aircraft was hit by a missile after a training exercise went awry. Aeroflot withdrew the Tu-104 in 1979 after a false fire alarm led to an aircraft crashing while returning to Moscow airport, killing 58 of 119 onboard.
The Russian military continued using the type until 1981 when a Soviet Navy example crashed due to improper loading of cargo, killing 16 Admirals in the process. With 201 aircraft built the Tu-104 suffered a loss rate of 16%, better than the next entry but substantially worse than just about any other operational jet airliner.
9: de Havilland Comet
After years of wartime austerity, the de Havilland Comet showed the world that Britain was still at the cutting edge of civil aviation. The world’s first jet-powered airliner entered service with BOAC in 1952 heralding a golden future. Unfortunately, that never arrived.
On 26 October 1952, a BOAC aircraft ran off the runway at Rome’s Ciampino airport refusing to leave the ground despite the nose being held in the air. Four months later a Canadian Pacific Airlines Comet taking off from Karachi did the same, killing all 11 onboard. Ultimately a modification to the wing leading edge would solve the problem but much worse was to come.
In January 1954, Comet G-ALYP disintegrated over the Mediterranean killing all onboard. After a brief investigation, the Comet was returned to flight in March. Two weeks later G-ALYY would disappear near Naples. The Comet’s Certificate of Airworthiness was revoked, and a thorough investigation began.
It was discovered that the crack that caused the first accident began at a rivet hole that had been damaged during build. The thin-gauge metal used to save weight made the early Comets vulnerable to this type of damage and a redesign was required. However the damage was done, the battle lost to the Boeing 707. 114 Comets were built, with 25 being lost.
8: Gloster Meteor
The endurance of the Gloster Meteor, the first jet-powered fighter of the Allies, could be measured with an egg timer. Another serious issue was that an engine failure of one of the two engines on take-off could be fatal. The two engines were widely spaced out from each other causing alarmingly asymmetric thrust with one engine out. In some cases, pilots would have their own critical speed recommendation for asymmetric flight based on their leg strength.
Other issues included selecting the air brakes with the undercarriage and flaps already down, the resultant blanking of airflow to the tail leading to a dive. The limited navigation aids available at the time also caused issues, on one occasion in 1951 a flight of three aircraft from 203 Advanced Flying School at RAF Driffield found themselves having to descend over the sea to gain visual flight conditions.
The full list of Meteor crashes is astonishing and not only was the aircraft ridden with dangerous design features, it was a new type of aeroplane requiring new skills to many pilots more familiar with piston-engined aircraft.
1952 alone saw 150 Meteors lost in RAF service, 30% of losses for that year, the next highest figure being for Vampires with a ‘mere’ 82 being lost. The following year saw a slight easing off with only 143 Meteors lost. In total the RAF alone lost 890 Meteors, accounting for 22% of the production run.
7: Vought F7U Cutlass
The Vought Cutlass still looks like it came from the future today. Unfortunately, it’s a future with a very relaxed approach to safety. A lack of thrust was one flaw; a complicated high-pressure hydraulic system was another. In the F7U-1 failure of this could leave the pilot with no control for 11 seconds while pressure decreased enough for manual control to be taken.
A third weak point was the fragile nose gear. As if having the cockpit 14 feet off the ground at a 9 degrees attitude wasn’t enough for landing and taxiing it was raised to 14 degrees, and in a foreshadowing of the Phantom a full 20 degrees for take-off. Unfortunately, this made the whole spindly assembly liable to collapse on landing, or worse punching up through the cockpit floor into the bottom of the ejection seat causing it to fire.
As a carrier aircraft, its greatest weakness, of many, was the 23-degree nose-high attitude on approach which essentially guaranteed that if you could see the ship you were doing it wrong. A design flaw meant that while in afterburner the transfer tank that fed fuel to the engines could be drained faster than it was being replenished from the rest of the system.
Unsurprisingly the Cutlass was withdrawn from fleet operations by October 1957, only three and a half years after entering service, although some would remain in second-line use until March 1959 primarily for trial work. 78 of 320 Cutlasses were lost in accidents in only 55,000 flying hours making it one of the most dangerous US Navy jets of all time. Still, that’s amateur hour compared to the next entry.
6: C-87 Liberator Express
The B-24 Liberator was one of the best heavy bombers of the Second World War, and in its Anti Submarine Warfare variants was responsible for sinking more submarines than any other aircraft in history. The C-87 transport version would enjoy none of its siblings’ success.
To make a C-87 the bomb bay was converted into a cargo area along with the fuselage forward of the cockpit. Able to carry up to 25 passengers or 12,000lbs (5455kg) of cargo the Liberator Express was an improvement on the existing C-47. Unfortunately, due to the priority given to its bomber cousin shortcuts were taken in the C-87’s production.
The use of a lower boost supercharger adversely affected its high-altitude performance. The nose gear was prone to breaking, having not been intended for landings with a full internal load. Cargo was also liable to shift throwing the centre of gravity out of limits, causing the aircraft to climb or dive uncontrollably.
In the book, ‘Fate is the Hunter’ author and pilot Ernest K Gann details the C-87’s faults, including the time he nearly destroyed the Taj Mahal after taking off in a C-87 with three tonnes more fuel than expected. The C-87’s loss rate was over 50% with 152 of 287 lost. In comparison, despite regularly being engaged in air-to-air combat, only around 33% of Liberators were lost.
5: Latécoère 631
The Latécoère 631 was the ultimate in late ‘30s flying boats with six engines, twin tails, and a bar in the nose, unfortunately, the second world war would delay its service entry to 1946. Before this, the first example had been commandeered by the Luftwaffe, and then sunk at its moorings by the RAF.
In October 1945 the second aircraft was flying between Rio de Janeiro and Montevideo when the number 3 propeller broke off. One blade hit the number 2 engine's propeller and another ripped through the fuselage killing two passengers. Air France continued its operations and it wasn’t until February 1948 when a brand new 631 crashed into the English Channel in bad weather.
August 1948 saw aircraft F-BDRC disappear over the Atlantic. Air France took the opportunity to cancel its orders while the French government created a company to use the remaining examples for cargo. Meanwhile, F-WANU was used to discover what had led to F-BDRC’s loss, leading to it too crashing.
Another company was now formed to use two of the remaining 631s for cargo operations. When one of these broke up in a thunderstorm over Cameroon in 1955 operations finally stopped. Four of seven Latécoère 631s were lost in accidents with all onboard dying, making it one of the more dangerous airliners ever to fly; a further four 631 planes were never even used.
4: Vought F-8 Crusader
The Crusader was a handful, which was painfully apparent when it came to landing, a terrible quality in a carrier aircraft. A terrifying total of 493 Crusader pilots had to exit the aircraft by ejection seat.
Overall, 517 of the 1261 Crusaders had been built had been lost. This loss rate of 41% is dismal, and that there is 737 entries in the Aviation Safety Network database is clearly atrocious.
The high approach speed of 147 knots was a big issue on smaller carriers such as the Essex-class. Consistent speed was also important. To help, an autothrottle (Approach Power Compensator) was added in 1964, but even this caused problems as over-reliance on the APC was equally dangerous.
Another peculiarity of the F-8 was its odd relationship between nose attitude and sink rate caused by its oddest design feature, on landing the wing stayed at the same angle of attack as the fuselage tilted (the wing was mounted on a mechanism). Things were particularly counter-intuitive for the pilot in the final approach stages, which again required attention. The Crusader, fine in many ways, was an extremely dangerous aeroplane.
3: Supermarine Scimitar
The Supermarine Scimitar was a twin-jet naval fighter from the manufacturers of the Spitfire. Despite having two engines each producing 11,000lbs of thrust, the overly thick wing, prevented it being supersonic in anything other than a dive. It also suffered a horrendous loss rate.
For a naval aircraft surprisingly few of its accidents directly involved an aircraft carrier. Two suffered cable breaks after landing and fell off the front of the ship. A third suffered brake failure while taxiing to the catapult, while a fourth ditched after an aborted landing. A fifth aircraft suffered an engine failure on approach.
Scimitars also suffered nine losses due to hydraulic failures, 5 due to engine failures, a couple each due to bird strikes, fuel leaks, or Controlled Flight into Terrain. There were also 7 losses for unknown reason.
In an unusual twist, two of the three surviving Scimitars were involved in a mid-air collision over Malta in April 1964 when 807 squadron was on its way back from the Far East. Overall of 76 Scimitars built, 39 were lost in accidents - a staggering 51% - all essentially in peacetime: the closest they came to a war was deterring an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1961.
2: Republic F-105 Thunderchief
The Republic F-105 Thunderchief had an auspicious start to life with the first two prototypes breaking their backs in landing accidents. Given the airframe needed a complete redesign to reach the contracted top speed this was probably less of a problem than it at first seemed. However, it wasn’t an encouraging sign when after all the modifications to achieve that were done the third prototype very nearly did the same thing.
In this case the main gear refused to extend as the engine auxiliary intakes, located in the gear bay, had opened and the suction from the Pratt and Whitney J-75s was holding the doors firmly shut. In a cruel twist with the engine shut down the test pilot was walking away from the aircraft only for it to slowly hoist itself up onto its wheels, the hydraulics being able to overcome gravity if not vacuums.
Aside from the excessive heat and humidity requiring modification to the Thunderchief the single hydraulic system controlling the horizontal stabiliser soon emerged as a weak point. Damage to the system would force the aircraft into an irrecoverable dive - F-105s were also falling to North Vietnamese air defences, primarily guns, at a shocking rate. At least 60 were lost in 1965, 111 in 1966, and a further 97 in 1967.
In all 334 Thunderchiefs were lost in combat over Vietnam nearly 20% of USAF losses and 40% of all F-105s produced. Even in the context of war, this was bad when compared to loss rates for aircraft in WW2. A further 63 were lost in accidents in South East Asia while when other losses are included well over 50% of all Thunderchiefs produced were lost.
1: Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka
Built by the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Yokosuka arsenal, the MXY-7 Ohka suicide bomb was a 20 foot tube with stub wings. The doomed pilot was sandwiched between a 1200kg warhead and a 4500 pound thrust rocket motor. Surprisingly, there was armour plating at the rear of the cockpit to protect the pilot.
Despite a top speed of over 500mph, the Ohka was not the highly effective weapon that had been hoped for. Kamikaze attacks in converted fighters had shown limited success but the MXY-7 had an Achilles heel. Its limited range required it to be carried to the target by a converted G4M ‘Betty’ bomber.
