Incidents like the collision over D.C. and the crash in Philadelphia have heightened anxiety around flying and brought to mind past aviation tragedies like the commercial crash in Birmingham over thirty years ago.In 1991, L’Express Airlines Flight 508 crashed in the Ensley neighborhood while on its way to Birmingham Shuttlesworth Airport. WVTM 13 spoke with a witness at the scene who described the horrifying experience.”All of a sudden it got real dark and started raining real hard, thundering and lightening and all of the sudden we looked to our left and we saw a big ole pile of smoke, I thought lightening had struck the house, but when the wind kinda shifted and blow the smoke away you could see that it was actually a plane sitting on top of the house.”Thirteen people on board and four on the ground were killed in the crash. The plane’s pilot and one passenger survived.This accident, according to data collected by Hearst Television, was one of 87 deadly commercial plane crashes in the U.S. since 1970.While plane accidents seem to be happening more often than normal, they’re ultimately very rare.Data from the past 20 years shows an average of 0.00028% of passenger flights the FAA oversees are involved in an accident. Rarely do they involve serious injury or deathStay updated on the latest stories with the WVTM 13 app. You can download it here.
Incidents like the collision over D.C. and the crash in Philadelphia have heightened anxiety around flying and brought to mind past aviation tragedies like the commercial crash in Birmingham over thirty years ago.
In 1991, L’Express Airlines Flight 508 crashed in the Ensley neighborhood while on its way to Birmingham Shuttlesworth Airport. WVTM 13 spoke with a witness at the scene who described the horrifying experience.
“All of a sudden it got real dark and started raining real hard, thundering and lightening and all of the sudden we looked to our left and we saw a big ole pile of smoke, I thought lightening had struck the house, but when the wind kinda shifted and blow the smoke away you could see that it was actually a plane sitting on top of the house.”
Thirteen people on board and four on the ground were killed in the crash. The plane’s pilot and one passenger survived.
This accident, according to data collected by Hearst Television, was one of 87 deadly commercial plane crashes in the U.S. since 1970.
While plane accidents seem to be happening more often than normal, they’re ultimately very rare.
Data from the past 20 years shows an average of 0.00028% of passenger flights the FAA oversees are involved in an accident. Rarely do they involve serious injury or death
Stay updated on the latest stories with the WVTM 13 app. You can download it here.