At least 240 peo­ple were killed when an Air In­dia plane crashed Thurs­day in­to a med­ical school short­ly af­ter take-off. It was the lat­est in a long list of avi­a­tion dis­as­ters this year.

One pas­sen­ger sur­vived the crash but every­one else aboard the Boe­ing 787 was killed. More peo­ple died on the ground af­ter the plane crashed and gen­er­at­ed a large fire­ball. Black smoke bil­lowed from the site where the plane crashed and burst in­to flames near the air­port in Ahmed­abad, a city of more than 5 mil­lion and the cap­i­tal of Gu­jarat.

All the air­craft crash­es and near miss­es have fu­elled many wor­ries about fly­ing.

The In­di­an crash was far worse than the midair col­li­sion that killed 67 peo­ple near Wash­ing­ton, D.C., in Jan­u­ary in the first ma­jor fa­tal crash on U.S. soil since 2009. Oth­er re­cent in­ci­dents in­clude an air­lin­er clip­ping an­oth­er in Feb­ru­ary while taxi­ing at the Seat­tle air­port. In March, an Amer­i­can Air­lines plane caught fire af­ter land­ing in Den­ver, send­ing 12 peo­ple to the hos­pi­tal. A sight­see­ing he­li­copter broke apart and crashed in­to the Hud­son Riv­er be­tween New York City and New Jer­sey in April, killing six peo­ple.

Fed­er­al of­fi­cials have tried to re­as­sure trav­ellers that fly­ing is the safest mode of trans­porta­tion, and sta­tis­tics sup­port that. But the cas­cade of head­lines about all the things that have gone wrong is draw­ing in­creas­ing at­ten­tion.

Here is a look at some of the re­cent tragedies and mishaps:

Re­cent fa­tal crash­es

— Two dif­fer­ent small planes crashed near San Diego over the past month. Six peo­ple died when a pri­vate jet crashed in­to a San Diego neigh­bour­hood in the midst of heavy fog. The run­way lights weren’t work­ing at that air­port. Six more peo­ple died ear­li­er this week when a small plane crashed in­to the ocean short­ly af­ter tak­ing off in San Diego.

— The New York he­li­copter that crashed on April 10 de­part­ed a down­town he­li­port. The flight last­ed less than 18 min­utes. Radar da­ta shows the he­li­copter flew north along the Man­hat­tan sky­line, then south to­ward the Stat­ue of Lib­er­ty. The vic­tims in this crash in­clud­ed a fam­i­ly from Spain who was cel­e­brat­ing the ninth birth­day of one of their chil­dren.

— Three peo­ple were killed and one was in­jured when a small plane crashed April 11 in Bo­ca Ra­ton, Flori­da, near a ma­jor in­ter­state high­way and pushed a car on­to rail­road tracks.

— Two small planes col­lid­ed midair near an Ari­zona air­port in Feb­ru­ary, killing two peo­ple who were on one of the air­craft. Fol­low­ing the col­li­sion, one plane land­ed un­event­ful­ly, but the oth­er hit the ground near a run­way and caught fire. The crash hap­pened at Marana Re­gion­al Air­port near Tuc­son.

— A small com­muter plane crashed in Alas­ka in ear­ly Feb­ru­ary, killing all 10 peo­ple on board. The crash was one of the dead­liest in the state in 25 years. Radar da­ta in­di­cat­ed that the plane rapid­ly lost el­e­va­tion and speed. The U.S. Coast Guard was un­aware of any dis­tress sig­nals from the air­craft.

— A med­ical trans­port plane that had just tak­en off plum­met­ed in­to a Philadel­phia neigh­bour­hood in late Jan­u­ary, killing all six peo­ple on board and two peo­ple on the ground. About two dozen peo­ple were al­so hurt. The Na­tion­al Trans­porta­tion Safe­ty Board said its cock­pit voice recorder like­ly hadn’t been func­tion­ing for years. The crew made no dis­tress calls to air traf­fic con­trol.

— The col­li­sion be­tween an Amer­i­can Air­lines pas­sen­ger jet and a U.S. Army he­li­copter above the na­tion’s cap­i­tal killed every­one aboard both air­craft in late Jan­u­ary. It was the dead­liest plane crash in the U.S. since Nov. 12, 2001, when a jet slammed in­to a New York City neigh­bour­hood just af­ter take-off, killing all 260 peo­ple on board and five on the ground.

— A jet­lin­er op­er­at­ed by Je­ju Air skid­ded off a run­way, slammed in­to a con­crete fence and burst in­to flames in late De­cem­ber in South Ko­rea af­ter its land­ing gear ap­par­ent­ly failed to de­ploy. All but two of the 181 peo­ple aboard were killed in one of that coun­try’s worst avi­a­tion dis­as­ters.

In­ci­dents with in­juries

— The Amer­i­can Air­lines plane that caught fire at Den­ver In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in March had been di­vert­ed there be­cause the crew re­port­ed en­gine vi­bra­tions af­ter tak­ing off in Col­orado Springs. While taxi­ing to the gate, an en­gine caught fire, prompt­ing slides to be de­ployed so pas­sen­gers could evac­u­ate quick­ly. The peo­ple tak­en to hos­pi­tals had mi­nor in­juries. The NTSB found a fu­el leak and sev­er­al im­prop­er­ly in­stalled parts in the en­gine.

— A sin­gle-en­gine plane car­ry­ing five peo­ple crashed and burst in­to flames that same month in the park­ing lot of a re­tire­ment com­mu­ni­ty near a small air­port near Lan­cast­er, Penn­syl­va­nia. Every­one on board sur­vived. Three peo­ple were tak­en to an area burn cen­tre.

— A Delta Air Lines jet flipped over while land­ing at Toron­to’s Pear­son Air­port in Feb­ru­ary. All 80 peo­ple on board sur­vived, but some peo­ple re­ceived mi­nor in­juries. Wit­ness­es and video from the scene showed the plane land­ing so hard that its right wing was sheared off. In­ves­ti­ga­tors said when try­ing to de­ter­mine the cause, they would con­sid­er the weath­er con­di­tions and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of hu­man er­ror.

Close calls

— Last month, two com­mer­cial planes had to abort their land­ings at Rea­gan Na­tion­al Air­port near Wash­ing­ton be­cause of an Army Black Hawk he­li­copter fly­ing near the Pen­ta­gon. The Army sus­pend­ed all its he­li­copter flights in the area af­ter this in­ci­dent. It was a Black Hawk pri­or­i­ty air trans­port from the same unit known as the PAT25 that col­lid­ed with the pas­sen­ger jet in midair in Jan­u­ary.

— In April, on the same day as the fa­tal New York he­li­copter crash, a wing tip of an Amer­i­can Air­lines plane struck an­oth­er plane from the same air­line on a taxi­way of the Ronald Rea­gan Wash­ing­ton Na­tion­al Air­port in Ar­ling­ton, Vir­ginia. There were no re­port­ed in­juries. Mul­ti­ple mem­bers of Con­gress were aboard one of the flights.

— A FedEx car­go plane made an emer­gency land­ing at a busy New Jer­sey air­port in March af­ter a bird strike caused an en­gine fire that could be seen in the morn­ing sky. The plane land­ed at Newark Lib­er­ty In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port. There were no re­port­ed in­juries.

— Pi­lots on a South­west Air­lines flight about to land at Chica­go’s Mid­way Air­port were forced to climb back in­to the sky to avoid an­oth­er air­craft cross­ing the run­way in late Feb­ru­ary. Video showed the plane ap­proach­ing the run­way be­fore it abrupt­ly pulled up as a busi­ness jet tax­ied on­to the run­way with­out au­tho­riza­tion, fed­er­al of­fi­cials said.

— In ear­ly Feb­ru­ary, a Japan Air­lines plane was taxi­ing on the tar­mac of Seat­tle-Taco­ma In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port when it ap­par­ent­ly clipped the tail of a parked Delta plane. There were no in­juries re­port­ed.

— In ear­ly Jan­u­ary, pas­sen­gers pan­icked when a man aboard a Jet­Blue plane taxi­ing for take-off from Boston’s Lo­gan In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port opened an ex­it door over a wing, trig­ger­ing an emer­gency slide to in­flate. Oth­er pas­sen­gers quick­ly re­strained the man and the plane didn’t take off.

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Sto­ry by JOSH FUNK | As­so­ci­at­ed Press