What plane crash do you find the most interesting?

Kind of a morbid question but I've been watching a lot of plane crash videos from seconds to disaster and found some of them quite interesting to listen to.|||My personal favorite is the United 232 flight. The reason is the absolutely incredible/unbelievable job the pilots did in figuring out how to control a completely uncontrollable airplane. Unfortunately there were 111 deaths but they did save the lives of 295 others. Al Haynes, the pilot in command,died a few years ago from cancer but he gets my vote for pilot of the century.|||There are lots I used when teaching Human Factors: Eastern 409, Palm 90, UAL 811, Saudi 169 (I think that's the number).|||Dear Jordan, a plane crash is never interesting. Sorry to say that, though. It is simply because human lives are not / cannot be equated to dollar amounts. It is also because planes are expensive. A b/n 747 jumbo costs around US$50 million, not to mention the training and skills of the pilots going to naught. Maybe, we can say the most horrible ones, in terms of casualties, or the plane(s) lost, as explosions, or in collisions in mid-air, which happen sometimes.|||Howard L brings up an interesting point. While all accidents are sad, there is always something to be learned from them. Having studied many accidents, United 232 stands out in my mind. Up until that point in time, the Captain was thought of as a "god". You didn't question the Captain. It was his way or the highway. United 232 brought Crew Resource Management (CRM) into the spotlight. CRM is all about teamwork. It is about using all of your resources and working as a team to manage every aspect of the flight. The Captain is still in command, but he/she is more like a coach, not a dictator. Captain AL Haynes and his crew (including an off duty pilot that was riding as a passenger) worked together to come up with the best possible outcome given the condition they were dealing with. As an airline pilot and Captain, I can't stress the importance of CRM...and it doesn't just apply to the pilots. The flight attendants are very much involved in CRM also.





While United 232 was tragic, it helped bring Commercial Aviation out of the "Captain is god" mindset. In the long run, it has probably saved countless lives because of what it did to the aviation industry.