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On April 26, 1993, Indian Airlines Flight 491, a scheduled domestic service from Aurangabad to Bombay, crashed shortly after takeoff, killing 55 of the 118 people on board. The aircraft was a Boeing 737-2A8, registration VT-ECQ, manufactured in 1974 and powered by two Pratt & Whitney JT8D-9A engines. It had accumulated 43,886 flight hours and more than 50,000 cycles. The flight had originated in Delhi with stops in Jaipur and Udaipur before arriving in Aurangabad, a route popular with tourists visiting Rajasthan’s historic palaces and the economic hub of Bombay. On board were 112 passengers, including at least ten Western nationals from Australia, Britain, Germany, and Japan, along with two flight crew and four cabin crew. The captain was 38-year-old S.N. Singh, who had logged 4,963 total flight hours with 1,720 hours on the 737, and the first officer was 30-year-old Manisha Mohan, with 1,172 hours, 921 of them on type.

At Aurangabad, 51 passengers boarded and the aircraft was refueled before the crew received clearance for Runway 09. The takeoff roll began around 13:00 local time under hot, clear conditions. The aircraft reached rotation speed roughly 4,100 feet down the 6,000-foot runway, but the captain delayed rotation by five to seven seconds after the callout. The nose began to rise only in the final 500 feet of the paved surface, and the 737 still had not lifted off when it reached the end of the runway and continued into the 1,800-foot overrun area. A truck loaded with cotton bales was traveling on a public road about 410 feet beyond the runway end. The aircraft’s left main landing gear and left engine struck the truck, severing the landing gear and the engine’s thrust reverser. Debris from the impact damaged the left horizontal stabilizer and left elevator, causing approximately 98 inches of the stabilizer and 115 inches of the elevator to detach. The left engine’s RPM dropped, and the aircraft banked left.

Still airborne, the 737 flew approximately three kilometers northeast and struck a set of high-tension power lines, snapping all three. About 500 meters farther, it hit two babool trees, which tore off the left flaps and engine before the aircraft slammed into the ground left-engine-first. The fuselage split into two sections aft of the 19th cabin window. The rear section inverted and was quickly consumed by fire, while the forward portion slid another 190 meters before stopping. The cockpit crew evacuated through the window, and passengers and two surviving cabin crew exited through the left forward entry door. Fifty-three passengers and two cabin crew members stationed in the rear galley died; all but one passenger in the aft fuselage perished. Sixty-three people survived, including the captain, first officer, and two flight attendants, though 11 sustained serious injuries.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation launched an investigation, retrieving the flight recorders from the burned wreckage. Terrorism was quickly ruled out because no explosive traces were found, despite the crash occurring one day after the hijacking of another Indian Airlines 737. Investigators then examined whether the aircraft was overloaded. The load sheet indicated a takeoff weight 54 kilograms below the regulated limit, but further analysis suggested an overload of 118 kilograms, and some estimates placed the excess as high as one ton due to unaccounted hand baggage. Flight simulations showed that an overloaded state alone would not have caused the crash; instead, they pointed to the captain’s late rotation. Investigators concluded that Captain Singh routinely employed a delayed rotation technique, believing it would build up extra speed and improve climb performance, especially when he perceived the aircraft as overweight. On this flight, that misperception caused him to hold the nose down far longer than normal. When the truck appeared, he hesitated for two seconds before executing a rapid over-rotation to avoid collision, later stating he felt disoriented and panicked. First Officer Mohan recognized the abnormality and momentarily grabbed the control column, but the captain told her to leave it.

Contributing significantly to the accident was the presence of the truck on a road that passed close to the departure end of the runway. Until 1985, gates controlled traffic during flight operations, but those gates had been absent since 1986. The National Airports Authority (NAA) had failed to regulate vehicle movements on the road, and investigators noted a lack of coordination among NAA officials responsible for the area. The final report, issued on December 25, 1993, determined the probable causes to be pilot error in initiating late rotation and using an incorrect rotation technique, and the NAA’s failure to control vehicular traffic on the adjacent road during flight hours. After the crash, the runway was lengthened by 3,000 feet and the road was gated again. Captain Singh’s command license was revoked and his co-pilot license suspended, while other officials faced departmental action.

Investigation Report：https://www.dgca.gov.in/digigov-portal/Upload?flag=iframeAttachView&attachId=i4WUfruawscOchoa3rOxXA%3D%3D

https://www.footage.net/clipdetail?supplier=historic&key=20864081

On November 1, 1955, United Air Lines Flight 629, a Douglas DC-6B registered N37559 and named Mainliner Denver, was destroyed by a dynamite bomb concealed in checked luggage. The explosion occurred at 7:03 p.m. local time over Weld County, Colorado, approximately eight miles east of Longmont, while the aircraft was en route from Denver to Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington. All 39 passengers and 5 crew members aboard were killed.

The aircraft, manufactured in 1952, had accumulated 11,949 flight hours and was powered by four Pratt & Whitney R-2800 CB-16 Double Wasp engines. The operating crew consisted of Captain Lee H. Hall, age 41, a World War II veteran with 10,086 total flight hours; First Officer Donald A. White, 26, with 3,578 hours; and Flight Engineer Samuel F. Arthur, 38, with 1,995 hours. Two stewardesses, Jacqueline Hinds and Peggy Ann Peddicord, were working the flight, and two other United stewardesses, Barbara J. Cruse and Sally Ann Scofield, were traveling as vacationing passengers.

Flight 629 originated at New York’s La Guardia Airport that day, made a scheduled stop in Chicago, and arrived at Denver’s Stapleton Airfield at 6:11 p.m., eleven minutes behind schedule. At Denver the airplane was refueled with 3,400 gallons of aviation gasoline, a crew change took place, and the aft baggage compartment was loaded with mail, freight, and passenger luggage that had originated in Denver. The flight took off at 6:52 p.m. and made its final radio transmission at 6:56 p.m., reporting passage of the Denver omni range. At about 7:03 p.m., controllers at Stapleton observed two bright lights descending north-northwest of the airport, followed by an intense flash at ground level that briefly illuminated the cloud base. Farmers and residents near Longmont reported hearing a large explosion and seeing burning wreckage falling from the sky. Searchers found debris scattered over roughly six square miles, with major sections of the wings, engines, and center fuselage lying in two craters about 150 feet apart. Post-impact fires, fed by the fuel load, burned for three days.

The Civil Aeronautics Board investigation determined that the aircraft had disintegrated in flight beginning near the tail, and that the aft fuselage had been shattered by a force far exceeding any failure of normal aircraft systems. A strong odor of explosives was detected on items from the number 4 baggage compartment, and four unusual pieces of sheet metal recovered from that area were coated in gray soot found to contain chemical byproducts of a dynamite blast. The FBI, certain a bomb had been used, conducted background checks on the passengers and initially examined a possible labor-union motive before focusing on Denver locals who might have had personal enemies. Attention soon centered on Daisie Eldora King, a 53-year-old Denver businesswoman traveling to Alaska. She had purchased flight insurance just before boarding, and a search of her handbag yielded newspaper clippings about her son, John Gilbert Graham, who had been arrested for forgery in 1951 and held a lasting grudge against his mother for placing him in an orphanage during his childhood. Graham was the beneficiary of his mother’s life insurance policies and will. Investigators also learned that a restaurant King owned had previously been heavily damaged in an explosion for which Graham had collected property insurance.

A search of Graham’s home and automobile uncovered wire and other bomb-making components identical to fragments found in the wreckage, along with additional life insurance policies on King that she had not signed, rendering them void. Graham’s wife, Gloria, told agents that on the morning of the flight he had wrapped a “present” for his mother. Confronted with the evidence, Graham confessed on November 13, 1955, and described binding sticks of dynamite around blasting caps with cord and placing the device inside his mother’s suitcase without her knowledge.

Because no federal statute at that time specifically criminalized the bombing of an aircraft, prosecutors charged Graham with a single count of first-degree murder for the death of his mother. The 1956 trial, the first in Colorado to be televised, ended in a conviction, and after unsuccessful legal challenges Graham was executed in the Colorado State Penitentiary gas chamber on January 11, 1957. In direct response to the case, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation on July 14, 1956, making the intentional bombing of a commercial airliner a federal crime. A memorial to the victims was dedicated at the former Stapleton Airport control tower on November 1, 2025, and a second memorial is planned at the main crash site.

Flight 629 was the second confirmed bombing of a commercial airliner in the United States, following the 1933 sabotage of a United Air Lines Boeing 247 near Chesterton, Indiana. Graham reportedly drew inspiration from the 1949 Albert Guay affair in Quebec. Other bombings of airliners in North America in the years that followed included National Airlines Flight 967 in 1959, National Airlines Flight 2511 in 1960, Continental Airlines Flight 11 in 1962, and Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 21 in 1965.

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On the morning of September 22, 1995, a United States Air Force Boeing E-3B Sentry airborne early warning and control aircraft, serial number 77-0354, was destroyed in a crash shortly after takeoff from Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska. The aircraft, operating under the call sign Yukla 27, was assigned to the 962d Airborne Air Control Squadron of the 3rd Wing and had been scheduled for a local training mission. All 24 crew members on board were killed. The crash site was located in a hilly, wooded area at 61°15′57″N 149°45′39″W, roughly two kilometers northeast of the airfield and less than one mile beyond the departure end of Runway 06.

At 07:43 local time, Yukla 27 was holding short of the runway while a C-130 Hercules transport aircraft departed ahead of it. The Hercules disturbed a flock of Canada geese that had been on the airfield, but the tower controller did not inform the Yukla crew or airfield management that geese were present. At 07:45 the E-3 was cleared for takeoff. As the aircraft rotated, it ingested numerous geese into its left-side Pratt & Whitney TF33 engines. The number 2 engine suffered a catastrophic failure and the number 1 engine stalled, causing a loss of thrust from both engines on the left wing. The crew began dumping fuel and initiated a left turn in an attempt to return to the base, but the aircraft was at its maximum takeoff weight and could not maintain altitude with the asymmetric power loss. It reached a maximum height of approximately 250 feet before starting to descend. After about 42 seconds of flight, the aircraft struck the ground nose-first, slid up a hill where the tail section broke away, then rolled over and broke apart. The impact and post-crash fire destroyed the airframe.

The subsequent Air Force investigation determined that the primary cause of the accident was the ingestion of Canada geese into the number 1 and number 2 engines. Several contributing factors were identified. The 3rd Wing lacked an aggressive program to detect and deter geese, and the bird hazard reduction working group’s preparations for the migration season were insufficient. An earlier safety staff assistance visit had incorrectly led the wing to believe its bird hazard measures were adequate. In addition, the control tower failed to notify either the Yukla 27 crew or airfield management that geese were present on the infield.

The aircraft had been built as an E-3A, with Boeing construction number 21554 and line number 933. It first flew on July 5, 1978, and was delivered to the Air Force on January 19, 1979, before being modified to the E-3B standard. Earlier in its service life, on the opening day of the Desert Storm air campaign, this same airframe controlled the intercept and shootdown of four Iraqi fighter aircraft over western Iraq.