Flashback 2014: A year of aviation disasters, tragedies that shocked the world

2014 witnessed many tragedies that shook the entire world to its core. While Malaysian airlines remained in news for two airline tragedies (MH 370 and MH 17), there were other incidents too that claimed many innocent lives.

2014 specially proved to be a big loss for the aviation industry world wide as many aviation accidents took place that left the world shell shocked. We bring to you tragedies that made the headlines this year:

MH 370 goes missing

Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 (MH 370) went missing on March 8 after it took off from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and continues to be missing till date. There were 239 people on board and shortly after take off the plane vanished off the radar and still has not been found.

Many theories emerged after the place went missing. While some said that the plane was hijacked, some said that it had crashed and some said that maybe it was abducted by the aliens; theories explaining in every possible way where the plane must be.

Termed to be the most expensive and the largest search operations in the history with over 20 countries participating in the search operations including India, Malaysian authorities said that they wouldn't give up on the search ops till the plane was found.

MH 17 shot down in eastern Ukraine

Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) was the second aviation disaster that Malaysia witnessed this year, after the plane was shot down over eastern Ukraine. According to reports the plane was shot down by pro-Russian separatists killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew members on July 17 this year.

The plane was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it crossed the Russia-Ukraine border before being shot down. The flight is believed to have crossed a conflict zone.

Till date many bodies remain unidentified. Most of the passengers were Dutch and some were Malaysians and Australians. Many airlines were asked to take extreme caution while flying over the conflict zone in Ukraine.

The investigation for the case is still in process.

AirAsia flight goes missing

This happens to be the latest incident where the AirAsia flight 8501 went missing on Dec 28 while it was flying from Indonesia to Singapore. 162 passengers were on board when the flight went missing after 45-minutes of take off.

Reports suggest that the pilot had requested for increasing the plane's altitude due to extreme weather conditions. Immediately after the plane went missing, rescue operations were pressed in to action.

Flight debris, bodies were spotted on Dec 30 in the Java Sea and officials confirmed that that debris belonged to the missing flight. Experts say that the flight may be at the bottom of the sea.

Air Algerie 5017

In another aviation disasters this year Air Algerie 5017 crashed in Mali in July this year. A week after the Malaysian airline MH17 was shot down in Ukraine, Air Algerie crashed in Mali. The flight was carrying 116 people when it took of from Burkina Faso to Mali. No survivors were found from the crash site.

Though the exact cause of the crash is not known, reports suggest that the plane had flown into a region of thunderstorms. The flight had to change its path do to rough weather conditions.

Black box from the plane was recovered from the crash site.

There were 51 French nationals on board.

Taiwan plane crash

48 people were dead and 10 were injured when a TransAsia Airways flight crashed in Taiwan while trying to land at the Penghu Islands.

The airline was trying to make an emergency landing due to bad weather . Two people killed were French nationals whereas the rest were Taiwanese.

The plane had crashed into a building after it came back for a second attempt to land.

Greece ferry fire

While the aviation industry continued to face setbacks, an Italian ferry caught fire along Greece's coast in the Adriatic Sea resulting in the death of 10 people. The fire broke out in the ferry on Dec 28 and over 400 people were stranded on the ferry before they could be rescued.

The passengers were airlifted and rescued. However officials are yet to ascertain the exact number of passengers on board. The rescued passengers were being treated at hospitals. The ferry was travelling from Greek coast Patras to Italian port of Ancona.

South Korea ferry disaster

Earlier in April this year, a South Korean ferry capsized on the southwestern coast of South Korea. More than 300 people died from the accident. Almost 250 passengers were said to be school students, who were on their way to a field trip.

10 passengers were missing.The search operation to retrieve the bodies of the passengers was called of after seven months.

Reports suggest that the ferry was overloaded, carrying passengers double the ship's limit when it capsized. Reports even suggested that the cargo was not loaded properly leading to the sinking of the ferry.

Captain Lee Joon-seok abandoned the ferry but asked the passengers to stay put. He was later on sentenced to 38 years in jail.

Beas river tragedy

24 students from Andhra Pradesh were washed away in when the Larji Hydropower Project authorities suddenly released water from the dam on the evening of June 8 in Himachal Pradesh.

The 24 engineering students, who were on a tour were helpless as the gates of the dam opened and water gushed out taking them by surprise.

Over 500 members of rescue teams were deployed to trace the missing students.