The July 17 Plane Crashes

Introduction
The July 17 Plane Crashes are a set of crashes that occurred on July 17. The three crashes in question are TWA Flight 800, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 and TAM Airlines Flight 3054. Exerts from each page will be displayed here, and links will be provided for the full story.

Introduction
TWA Flight 800 was a passenger aircraft carrying 230 people which would fly from New York to Rome, with a stop in Paris. The aircraft exploded 12 minutes after take-off, resulting the nose to fall off and the rest of the aircraft to fall into the sea.

The Crash
The plane takes off 1 hour and 20 minutes late, due to a passenger finding dilemma. Its flight path takes it at the edge of a US Military zone, which then gives people more evidence that it was a bomb. Nearby, a 737 is flying into New Jersey. The pilot has sight of Flight 800. The plane is cleared to climb to its next level, but before it can, the plane explodes.

The 737 pilot sees the plane go from a Boeing 747 to a flying fireball. Everything is pointing to a bomb. It soon disappears from air traffic control. The 737 pilot reports the explosion, and after a few tries on calling the aircraft, it is clear that the plane is down. Report after report of the crash comes out, and nearly every one of them say that the aircraft crashed due to a bomb. But what they don't know, is that is far from what happened.

Introduction
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was an incident where the plane was shot down on 17 July 2014 while flying over eastern Ukraine. All 283 passengers and 15 crew were killed.

The Crash
At exactly 16:20:03 local time (13:20:03 UTC) a Buk ground-to-air missile, which had been launched from an area east from the aircraft, detonated outside the aircraft just above the cockpit to the left. An explosive decompression occurred, resulting in both the cockpit and tail sections tearing away from the middle portion of the fuselage. All three sections disintegrated as they fell rapidly towards the ground.

Most of the debris landed near Hrabove, a village located north of Torez in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast, it spread over a 50 square kilometres (19 sq mi) area to the southwest of Hrabove. The fireball on impact is believed to have been captured on video. Photographs from the site of the crash show scattered pieces of broken fuselage and engine parts, bodies, and passports. Some of the wreckage fell close to houses. Dozens of bodies fell into crop fields, and some fell into houses.

Introduction
TAM Airlines Flight 3054 was a passenger flight from Porto Algre to São Paulo. The aircraft overshot the runway because of pilot error, killing 199. This made it the worst air accident in Brazil.

The Crash
The A320 is preparing to land, but something is different about this particular plane. The right thrust reverser is not working. A thrust reverser helps to stop the plane, and is used on landing. The A320 can land with one thrust reverser, and this same flight crew have landed the plane in this state before. They were approaching the airport, and began to prepare for the landing.

The A320 touches down on the runway, and it's one thrust reverser deploys. But despite this, the plane doesn't slow. As mentioned before, the plane should be able to stop, and has done so before. The flight crew, noticing this begin to panic and look for whats wrong. The Captain exclaims 'Look at This!', followed by the First Officer saying 'Decelerate, Decelerate!'. The plane, not stopping, turns off the runway, acknowledged by the First Officer's 'Go, go, go, turn, turn, turn, turn!'. The plane then flies off the raised airport, glides over the nearby highway, and smashes into a petrol station at the other side of the road. The last words on the cockpit voice recorder was simply 'Oh no'.