Flying in a jetliner is extraordinarily safe. But air travel only became so reliable because previous accidents caused crucial safety improvements. From midair collisions, to on-board fires, to a fatigued fuselage that turned a plane into a high-altitude convertible, these tragedies triggered major technological advances in flight safety that keep air travel routine today.
GRAND CANYON | TWA Flight 2 and United Airlines Flight 718
In the skies above the Grand Canyon on June 30, 1956, two planes that had recently taken off from Los Angeles International Airport—a United Airlines Douglas DC-7 headed to Chicago and a Trans World Airlines Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation on its way to Kansas City—collided. All 128 passengers and crew aboard both flights were killed.
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 August 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.
