Start with the reports
Every report in this archive comes from the investigating authority — accident investigation boards, safety agencies and official commissions. No summaries in place of the record: where a full report is public, you can download it here and read exactly what investigators found.
The archive is growing. New reports are added as they are obtained and verified, so check back — and if there is a report you are looking for, ask us.
Aviation Disasters
August 14, 2005 • Greece
Helios Airways Flight 522
A Boeing 737 climbed away from Cyprus with its pressurization set wrong. The crew and passengers lost consciousness, and the jet flew on alone for hours — a ghost flight — before it ran out of fuel and came down near Athens. All 121 people aboard died.
October 20, 1977 • Mississippi
1977 Lynyrd Skynyrd Plane Crash
Three days after the release of Street Survivors, the band's chartered Convair ran out of fuel over Mississippi and went down in the woods near Gillsburg. Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines and Cassie Gaines were among the six people killed.
October 25, 1999 • South Dakota
1999 Payne Stewart Plane Crash
A Learjet 35 lost cabin pressure minutes after takeoff from Orlando. With everyone aboard incapacitated, it flew on autopilot across the country, shadowed by Air Force jets, until it fell into a field in South Dakota. Golfer Payne Stewart was one of the six lost.
July 1, 2002 • Germany
Überlingen Mid-Air Collision
Two jets at the same altitude over Lake Constance, one air traffic controller working alone, and a fatal conflict between his instruction and the collision warnings in the cockpits. All 71 people aboard the two aircraft died, 52 of them children.
August 12, 1985 • Japan
Japan Airlines Flight 123
A Boeing 747 lost its tail and all its hydraulics twelve minutes after takeoff, yet its crew kept it in the air for half an hour. The 520 deaths make it still the deadliest single-aircraft accident in history.
December 21, 1988 • Scotland
Lockerbie Bombing
A bomb in a suitcase destroyed Pan Am Flight 103 at 31,000 feet over the town of Lockerbie. All 259 people aboard and 11 people on the ground were killed.
September 8, 1994 • Pennsylvania
USAir Flight 427
On final approach to Pittsburgh, a Boeing 737 rolled over and dived into a Beaver County hillside, killing all 132 aboard. The NTSB’s longest investigation traced the cause to a jammed rudder servo valve — and changed the 737 forever.
July 17, 1996 • New York
TWA Flight 800
Twelve minutes out of JFK for Paris, the centre wing fuel tank of a Boeing 747 exploded off Long Island, killing all 230 aboard. The NTSB’s four-year inquiry traced the ignition, most likely, to a short circuit in the tank’s own gauging wiring.
The Full Section
All Aviation Reports
Browse the complete aviation section — every crash report in the archive, with links to the official findings for each flight.
Other Disasters
June 1, 1974 • England
Flixborough Disaster
A temporary bypass pipe at the Nypro chemical plant ruptured and released a huge cloud of cyclohexane. The explosion that followed killed 28 people, injured dozens more and flattened the plant — and changed British industrial safety law for good.
May 31, 1889 • Pennsylvania
Johnstown Flood
The South Fork Dam, altered by a private fishing club, failed above Johnstown and sent Lake Conemaugh down the valley. 2,209 people died, and no one was ever held liable.
December 6, 1907 • West Virginia
Monongah Mine Disaster
Explosions tore through Fairmont Coal’s Nos. 6 and 8 mines at Monongah, killing 362 men and boys by the official count — and more, by any honest reckoning. The worst mining disaster in American history impelled Congress to create the U.S. Bureau of Mines.
April 16, 1947 • Texas
Texas City Disaster (1947)
Two freighters loaded with ammonium nitrate — Grandcamp, then High Flyer sixteen hours later — exploded in the harbour and levelled the waterfront. 581 people were killed in America’s deadliest industrial accident.
November 10, 1975 • Lake Superior
SS Edmund Fitzgerald
The largest ship on the Great Lakes sank in a November gale seventeen miles short of Whitefish Bay, with all 29 of her crew and no distress call. Her last reported words: “We are holding our own.”
October 23, 1983 • Lebanon
Beirut Barracks Bombing
A suicide truck bomb collapsed the Marine barracks at Beirut airport, killing 241 American servicemen — the Marine Corps’ deadliest day since Iwo Jima.
November 19, 1984 • Mexico
San Juanico Disaster
A ruptured pipe filled Pemex’s LPG terminal with a vapour cloud that ignited at a flare pit, touching off nine BLEVEs among the storage spheres. Between 500 and 600 people died in the town built around the plant — and no official inquiry report was ever published.
February 25, 1991 • Saudi Arabia
Dhahran Scud Attack
An Iraqi Scud struck a barracks warehouse in Dhahran during Desert Storm, killing 28 soldiers — most of them from a Pennsylvania Army Reserve unit — after a Patriot battery’s software clock drifted and it failed to engage.
June 25, 1996 • Saudi Arabia
Khobar Towers Bombing
A truck bomb sheared the face off an Air Force dormitory in Khobar, killing 19 airmen and injuring nearly 500 people. Fourteen men were indicted in the United States in 2001; none has stood trial there.
Maritime Disasters
Maritime Reports
Now in the archive: the Titanic (1912), the Pelican (1951), the Edmund Fitzgerald (1975), the Ocean Ranger (1982), the Herald of Free Enterprise (1987), the Exxon Valdez oil spill (1989), the MS Estonia (1994), the Arctic Rose (2001), the Alaska Ranger (2008), the Katmai (2008), the Costa Concordia (2012), the Sewol (2014), the El Faro (2015), the Destination (2017) and the Scandies Rose (2019), with the official inquiry reports for each.
September 11, 2001
On the morning of September 11, 2001, nineteen al Qaeda terrorists hijacked four American airliners. Nearly 3,000 people were killed. No official aircraft accident reports were ever released for the four flights — the definitive public record of the day is the 9/11 Commission Report, which you can download in full below.
8:46 AM • North Tower
American Airlines Flight 11
Boston to Los Angeles. The first plane hijacked, flown into the North Tower of the World Trade Center between the 93rd and 99th floors. All 92 people aboard died; the tower fell at 10:28 AM.
9:03 AM • South Tower
United Airlines Flight 175
Boston to Los Angeles. Struck the South Tower between the 77th and 85th floors, live on television. All 65 people aboard died; the tower fell at 9:59 AM.
9:37 AM • The Pentagon
American Airlines Flight 77
Washington Dulles to Los Angeles. Flown into the west face of the Pentagon. All 64 people aboard died, along with 125 people inside the building.
10:03 AM • Shanksville
United Airlines Flight 93
Newark to San Francisco. Warned by phone calls from the ground, the passengers fought back — "Let's roll" — and the plane went down in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, short of its target. All 44 aboard died.