Flying in a jetliner is extraordinarily safe: There have been no fatal crashes on a U.S. scheduled airline in the past seven years, an astounding record considering that more than 30,000 flights take off every day. How did flying get so reliable? In part, because previous accidents triggered crucial safety improvements. Here are 12 accidents whose influence is felt each time you step on a plane.
GRAND CANYON | TWA Flight 2 and United Airlines Flight 718
The accident spurred a $250 million upgrade of the air traffic control (ATC) system—serious money in those days. (It worked: There hasn't been a collision between two airliners in the United States in 47 years.) The crash also triggered the creation in 1958 of the Federal Aviation Agency (now Administration) to oversee air safety.
However, further improvements would be implemented after a small private plane wandered into the Los Angeles terminal control area on Aug. 31, 1986, striking an Aeromexico DC-9 and killing 86 people. The FAA subsequently required small aircraft entering control areas to use transponders—electronic devices that broadcast position and altitude to controllers. Additionally, airliners were required to have TCAS II collision-avoidance systems, which detect potential collisions with other transponder-equipped aircraft and advise pilots to climb or dive in response. Since then, no small plane has collided with an airliner in flight in the United States.
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