From the archives: Plane crashes and close calls

The plane that landed with the pilot halfway out the front windscreen; the very first fatal plane crash; the sole survivor of a plane crash in the Amazon; and the Boeing 767 that ran out of fuel 12,000 metres off the ground.

Rob HodgkinsCC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

In 1990 the pilot of a plane heading for Málaga, Spain, was sucked halfway out of the windscreen in the middle of the flight. The plane landed with him still half out the window.


Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Thomas Selfridge was the first US military pilot (of heavier-than-air planes) and also the first person to die in a plane crash.


In 1971 Juliane Koepcke fell out of a plane that had been struck by lightning over the Amazon. Of the 92 passengers, she was the only survivor.


Because of a metric mix-up, a Boeing 767 ran out of fuel in mid-air and had to glide home.

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