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2. The Nightmare on Mount Osutaka (JAL 123)
Now, let’s go to Japan, 1985. Japan Airlines Flight 123 took off fully loaded. Everything was normal until a deafening boom tore through the cabin. The vertical stabilizer had been ripped off. The plane lost its rudder and became uncontrollable.
The cause? A botched repair job years earlier. A single row of rivets missing during a fix caused metal fatigue.
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The pilots were heroes. For 32 agonizing minutes, they kept that giant in the air using only engine thrust to turn. The plane pitched up and down like a deadly rollercoaster while passengers scribbled goodbye notes to their families.
Tragically, they clipped a mountain ridge. 520 dead. Only 4 survivors. This accident changed maintenance and inspection rules forever.
3. The Mystery of Gol 1907 (2006)
This one hits hard. A brand-new Boeing 737 from Gol Airlines was flying smoothly over the Amazon rainforest when, suddenly, it started spiraling and broke apart in mid-air.
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Nobody understood it. The weather was perfect. The plane was factory fresh. What happened?
A mid-air collision. A Legacy business jet, flown by American pilots, was flying at the wrong altitude with its transponder (the device that “tells” radars where the plane is) turned off. The wing of the Legacy sliced through the wing of the Gol Boeing like a hot knife through butter.
The Legacy managed to land at a military base with a damaged wing. The Gol Boeing wasn’t so lucky.
The lesson here was brutal regarding air traffic control and the vital importance of never, ever turning off the transponder in flight. But the next accident on our list wasn’t mechanical, nor was it a traffic error. It was something much darker…