The most shocking, harrowing and mysterious air disasters in history and how they happened

IT is every air traveller’s worst nightmare, the thought of the plane crashing out of the sky and killing all on board.

Thankfully these disasters rarely strike, but when they do they stun the world.

Whether caused by faulty equipment, pilot error, ground control foul ups or terrorism all serve to strike fear into the frequent flyer.

Here The Sun charts some of the deadliest, strangest and harrowing air disasters to strike throughout history.

Tenerife Airport disaster 1977

On March 27, 1977, on the island of Tenerife two Boeing 747 jets collided on the runway in the deadliest accident in aviation history.

The accident occurred as a result of heady mix bombings, organisational issues and fog.

A bomb explosion at the airport on Gran Canaria caused many flights to be diverted Los Rodeos Airport on the popular holiday island.

Among two of the flights affected were KLM Flight 4805 and Pan Am Flight 1736, neither would leave the island.

Tragedy struck due to radio miscommunication causing the Dutch plane to rocket down the runway at take-off speed while the US aircraft was taxing in the opposite direction.

The resulting collision resulted in the death of 583 people.

All aboard the KLM flight died but miraculously 61, including the co-pilot, of the Pan Am flight survived.

Malaysia Airlines 370 2014

Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 was en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur carrying 239 people on board.

The MH370 Boeing was seen for the last time on military radar at 2.14am, close to the south of Phuket Island in the Strait of Malacca.

Before that, Malaysian authorities believe the last words heard from the plane, from either the pilot or co-pilot, was "Good night Malaysian three seven zero".

Half an hour later, the airline lost contact with the plane. It had been due to land at around 6.30am.

On July 29, 2015 - more than a year after the plane's disappearance - debris was found by volunteers cleaning a beach in St Andre, Reunion.

A week later investigators confirmed the debris did belong to MH370, but it did not help to locate the plane as it had drifted in the water.

Theories abound about what happened to the missing jet but the true cause of the crash may never be known

Malaysia Airlines 17 2014

In a bad year for the airline, this is the second entry for Malaysia Airlines in 2014 alone.

Flight MH17 was as passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17 2014.

All passengers and crew perished putting the death toll at 298 in the deadliest case of “airliner shootdown” in history, 80 children was on board when it went down.

It was hit by a Russian made Buk surface to air missile fired from Ukrainian separatist held land near Donetsk.

The July after the attack Malaysia proposed an international tribunal be set up to prosecute those responsible for the attack, but Russia vetoed the move.

Air France Flight 447 2009

On June 1 2009 Air France Flight 447 disappeared off radar off the coast of Brazil.

The airline took six hours to acknowledge the loss of the plane and no trace was found for days.

All 216 passengers and 12 crew were never seen again after the Rio to Paris flight crashed out of the sky.

Investigations went on to prove that the crash was caused by the pilot flying to high and stalling the engines causing the plane to fall out of the sky and into the Atlantic ocean.

Uruguayan Flight 571 1972

The plane was a chartered Air Force plane carrying 45 people including a Uruguayan rugby team that crashed in the Andes in South America.

More than a quarter of the passengers lost their lives on impact and a number of others quickly succumbed to the cold of the mountains or injuries sustained in the crash.

Of the 27 who survived the initial impact and cold a further eight were killed in an avalanche a few days after the incident.

Eventually 16 people were rescued after spending more than two months in the freezing conditions of the mountains.

But those survivors had been forced to eat the corpses of their fellow passengers when faced with starvation.

The harrowing tale of survival was immortalised in the film Alive starring Ethan Hawke in 1993.

JAT Yugoslav Airlines Flight 367 1972

The McDonnell Douglas DC-9-32 model aircraft was blown up by a bomb placed on board by Croatian fascist militant group the Ustase as it made its way back to Yugoslavia from Sweden.

All but one of the 28 passengers and crew died on the plane but one stewardess made it into the record books.

Vesna Vulović became the only person to ever survive falling from cruising altitude and holds the Guinness world record for the highest fall without a parachute.

She fell 33,333ft and suffered a fractured skull, three broken vertebrae and two broken legs.

Vesna was left in a coma for 27 days and paralysed from the waist down.

In an interview she said the man who found her told her: “I was in the middle part of the plane. I was found with my head down and my colleague on top of me.

“One part of my body with my leg was in the plane and my head was out of the plane. A catering trolley was pinned against my spine and kept me in the plane.

“The man who found me says I was very lucky.

“He was in the German Army as a medic during World War II. He knew how to treat me at the site of the accident."

She continued to work for Jat Airways after her recovery at a desk job and eventually regained the use of her legs and began flying again occasionally.

Vesna died last year aged 66.

Lockerbie Bombing – 1988

Pan Am Flight 103 was flying from Frankfurt to Detroit via London and New York on 21 December 1988.

While over the Scottish town of Lockerbie a bomb was detonated aboard the flight, killing all passengers and crew.

Eleven of the town’s residents on the ground were also killed by falling debris, bringing the death toll to 270.

Following a three year investigation by local police and the FBI two Libyans were issued with arrest warrants for murder.

In 1999 Colonel Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, handed over the men for trial and eventually Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was jailed for life in 2001 after being convicted of 270 counts of murder.

However the Scottish government released him back to his homeland on compassionate grounds in 2009 after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

He died in Tripoli three years later in 2012.

Japan Airlines Flight 123 - 1985

Japan Airlines Flight 123 was flying from Tokyo to Osaka when shortly after it reached it reached its cruising height of 24,000 suffered a catastrophic failure.

A loud bang sounded as the pressure bulkheads failed following a botched repair job causing an explosive decompression which blew the tail off the plane.

The aircraft became uncontrollable and eventually crashed into a mountain.

All 15 crew members and 505 of the 509 passengers on board died, 4 passengers lived.

It became the deadliest aviation accident involving a single plane in history.

American Airlines Flight 191 – 1979

Moments after take-off the left engine of Flight 191 from Chicago to Los Angeles fell off.

The plane rolled over upside down and smashed into a field near O’Hare international airport.

A firefighter on the scene was quoted as saying that not a single complete body was found.

Snaps taken by amateur photographers of the crash sparked a media firestorm condemning the DC-10 jet’s poor safety record.

9/11

The combined death toll of the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon became the worst incidents involving aeroplanes in history.

Al-Qaeda’s assault on the United States changed air travel and the world forever after four flights were hijacked and used in suicide attacks.

The two flights, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 each were responsible for thousands of casualties after being flown into the twin towers.

They are considered the largest and second largest losses of life due to individual plane crashes in history.

A total of 2,996 people were killed and more than 6,000 others wounded in the attack that shaped the rest of the 21st century.