 1 history
 2 WW2
 3 A300 airbus accidents

The development and operation of heavier-than-air  aircraft. The term "civil aviation" refers to the air- transportation service provided to the public by airlines, while "military aviation" refers to the  development and use of military aircraft. The first man-made objects to fly were balloons, which were  pioneered in France by the Montgolfier brothers in 1783. Some of the  basic scientific principles of heavier-than-air flight were laid  down in England in the early 19th century by Sir George Cayley. In  the 1890s Otto Lilienthal of Germany became the first person to make  and fly successful gliders. The American brothers Wilbur and Orville  Wright were inspired by Lilienthal and by 1902 had developed a fully  practical biplane (double-winged) glider that could be controlled in  every direction. Fitting a small engine and two propellers to  another biplane, the Wrights on Dec. 17, 1903, made the world's  first successful man-carrying, engine-powered, heavier-than-air  flight at a site near Kitty Hawk, on the coast of North Carolina.

The Wright bros' success inspired successful aircraft designs and flights by others, and WW I (1914-18) further accelerated the expansion of aviation. Though initially used for  aerial reconnaissance, aircraft were soon fitted with machine guns  to shoot at other aircraft and with bombs to drop on ground targets; military aircraft with these types of missions and armaments became known, respectively, as fighters and bombers.

By the 1920s the first small commercial airlines had begun to carry  mail, and the increased speed and range of aircraft made possible  the first nonstop flights over the world's oceans, poles, and  continents. In the 1930s more efficient monoplane (single-wing)  aircraft with an all-metal fuselage (body) and a retractable  undercarriage became standard. Aircraft played a vitally important  role in World War II (1939-45), developing in size, weight, speed,  power, range, and armament. The war marked the high point of  piston-engined propeller craft while also introducing the first  aircraft with jet engines, which could fly at higher speeds. 

Jet-engined craft became the norm for fighters in the late 1940s and  proved their superiority as commercial transports beginning in the  '50s. The high speeds and low operating costs of jet airliners led to a massive expansion of commercial air travel in the second half of the 20th century.

\2 Developments between the wars
 There were significant further developments from the Wrights' plane.
 Glenn Curtiss, another bicycle builder, developed an airplane that came to be known as the "1909 type" (it won the Reims air race of that year). At Hammondsport in upstate New York Curtiss built planes noted for their powerful engines. Since then, American plane manufacture has been notable for engine strength. By 1914 Curtiss was building a twin-engined seaplane that he intended to fly across the Atlantic. World War I interrupted this effort, but flying service in Florida across the 22 miles of Tampa Bay between Tampa and St. Petersburg that year became the first commercial airplane service in the world.
 Although World War I interrupted commercial developments, it led to rapid technical improvements in aircraft. In 1919 a Curtiss NC-4 flying boat accomplished the first aerial crossing of the Atlantic--between Newfoundland and Lisbon, with a stop in the Azores--under the command of Lieutenant Commander A.C. Read (see photograph). Only a month later, in June 1919, a nonstop flight from Newfoundland to Galway in Ireland was accomplished by British Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown in 16 hours and 27 minutes, making an average speed of 118.5 mile/h in a converted Vickers Vimy bomber. These tests used military aircraft, but after the war the airplane industry designed avowedly commercial planes. The French aeronaut Louis Blriot had begun the work in 1907 by building his Number VII as a monoplane, followed two years later by an improved machine in which he accomplished the first flight across the English Channel.
  After the war Anthony H.G. Fokker in Holland pursued the high-wing monoplane with a stressed wooden skin, while Hugo Junkers in Germany used a stressed metal skin and a low wing that reduced weight. The designer John Northrup and the Lockheed Aircraft Company in the
  United States produced what in many ways became the model for modern commercial aircraft in the Vega of 1927. As was the American practice, the Vega was well-powered, with radial engines of either 220- or 425-horsepower, which allowed a pilot and six passengers to be flown at between 110 and 135 mile/h at a range between 500 and 900 miles. The use of a stressed wooden skin allowed about a 35 percent savings in weight over a stressed metal skin.
  Formation of airlines With practical planes in hand in 1918 the organization of an airline to operate these craft on a scheduled basis over a consistent route was attempted. The first airline was formed in Germany; the Deutsche Luftreederie began service from Berlin to Leipzig and Weimar on Feb.5, 1919, followed only three days later by the French Farman Company on the trans-channel crossing from Paris to London using a converted Goliath bomber. In August 1919, the first daily service was established on this route from Le Bourget to Hounslow. The oldest
  surviving airline, KLM, was organized in The Netherlands in 1919 and jointly with a British company began flying the Amsterdam-London route the following year. Outside Europe, the Queensland and
  Northern Territories Aerial Services, Ltd. (Qantas) was founded in 1920; it eventually became the Australian national airline.
  Most of the airlines founded in the 1920s and '30s were created at least in part to encourage the purchase of aircraft of domestic manufacture; but the privately owned Swissair was the first European airline to purchase American aircraft. The intertwining of domestic aircraft manufacture and national airline operation was widely advocated as critical to national defense. In the United States airline pioneers were private operators, as were the aircraft builders, and there was no national policy concerning either operation. Throughout the 1920s there were no adequately financed airlines, and most lasted for only short periods before failing or merging. Given the large area of the United States, an airline with routes of national or even regional coverage was the exception. And it was only in the late 1920s that any thought was given to the question of encouraging a domestic aircraft industry or the promotion of domestic airline companies.
  A second factor, especially in Europe, was the colonial airline. Britain, France, The Netherlands, and Germany all developed colonial airlines, with Belgium, Italy, and the United States joining the operation less extensively. Routes for national airlines were limited to destinations within a country or its possessions, except by agreement. The extensive colonial empires still in existence in the 1920s and '30s became natural sites for extended airlines.
  Britain, for example, created Imperial Airways by first using bilateral agreements with other European countries to reach the Mediterranean and, once there, to project a continuation based on British colonies and protectorates in Malta, Cyprus, Palestine, Trans-Jordan, the Iraq and Persian Gulf protectorates, India, Burma, the Malay Protectorate, Australia, and New Zealand. China, Central Africa, and South Africa could be reached by other routes. Only the North Atlantic and the northern Pacific resisted a "British" national airline. France shaped a colonial airline from Provence across the Mediterranean to Algeria, the French Sahara, French Equatorial Africa, and Madagascar. Working out landing rights between Belgium and France provided a route to the Belgian Congo. The Netherlands, again through trades with Britain, shaped a colonial route for KLM to the Dutch East Indies.
  In the 1930s these colonial routes were the main long-distance air routes available not only because a far-flung empire simplified the problem of securing landing rights but also because the operating "stage"--that is, the maximum distance that might be flown without stopping to refuel--was then only about 500 miles. The Pacific and the Atlantic were the major "water jumps" that remained unconquered by civil aircraft in 1930. The American air routes showed the way to the solution. Pan American Airlines was first organized to fly from Miami to Key West in Florida and to Havana and by the 1930s from Brownsville, Texas, to Mexico City and Panama. Pan American founder Juan Trippe advocated the concept of the "chosen  instrument" --international connections for the United States should be provided by a single American company flying only outside the country. The American "empire" in this sense was Latin America, where American investment was extensive but political control was only indirect. Germany, which after World War I lost its empire, similarly turned to South America, particularly Colombia, to shape an extensive system of air routes. In the American case, Pan American's ultimately extensive route structure in the Caribbean, on the east coast of South America, and in Central America provided experience in operating a long-distance international airline.
  By the early 1930s three airlines in particular were seeking to develop world-scale route patterns--Pan American, Imperial Airways, and KLM. Such a development called for a set of aircraft that were entirely new in concept from those that had been derived from the planes of World War I. Specifically, what was needed were seaplanes, which offered some of the advantages that the Zeppelin company, Delag, had obtained with their dirigibles. They could fly stages of considerably greater length than could be flown with standard land planes because the sea-based plane enjoyed an almost infinite takeoff runway, that of a long stretch of water in a sheltered embayment. Several miles might be used at a time when a 1,000-foot airport runway was the norm. Long runways, either on land or on water, meant that planes could be quite large, use multiple engines, have large enough fuel tanks to fly an extended stage, and require less strength in the undercarriage.  The tradition of high-powered planes introduced between 1907 and 1909 by Glen Curtiss continued. In addition to the Curtiss company, Martin and Sikorsky each produced large four-engine seaplanes with the potential for stages of more than 500 miles. Because of its size, the United States showed a concern for lengthening the stage even of land-based planes. When Pan American adopted the seaplane in the early 1930s, the Sikorsky S-42 flying boat had four engines that permitted it to fly to Buenos Aires, Arg., by making a series of water crossings between Puerto Rico and the Ro de la Plata.
  After World War I, another factor contributed to airline development: the desire for an air service to speed up the mails. Unlike Europe, where the nationalized airlines carried the mail, in the United States the Army Air Corps was assigned the job, with generally dreary results. The problems of flying in a country the size of the United States were considerable. Particularly in the East, with the broad band of the Appalachians lying athwart the main routes, bad flying conditions were endemic and crashes were frequent. The introduction of aircraft beacons helped, but the low altitudes at which most contemporary planes could operate continued to plague service. Commercial flying began in earnest in 1925 when, under the Kelly Act, the United States Post Office Department established contracts for carrying mail over assigned routes.
  Payments were made in return for the weight of mail carried. This practice often gave earnings that made the difference between marginal operation and flying at outright losses. Later, the method of airmail payments was revised; instead of paying for the weight of mail carried, the Post Office paid instead for the space reserved for airmail were it to be offered to the airline company to
 transport. The result was an incentive to the companies to increase the size of the planes they normally flew.

\3 Fatal Airbus Events A300 , A310 , A320 , A330 (No events), A340 (No events) 
  The following events are those involving at least one passenger death where the aircraft flight had a direct or indirect role. Excluded would be events where the only pnsrs killed were stowaways, hijackers, or saboteurs. 

A300 Fatal Events  27 Jun 1976; Air France A300; Entebbe, Uganda: Aircraft was hijacked and all aboard taken hostage. Some passengers were released shortly after the hijacking and the remainder were taken to Entebbe, Uganda. The remaining hostages were eventually rescued in a commando raid. About seven of the 258 passengers were killed.

3 Jul 1988; Iranair A300; Persian Gulf, near Straits of Hormuz: Aircraft was shot down by a surface to air missile from the American naval vessel U.S.S. Vincennes. All 16 crew and 274 passengers were killed.

28 Sep 1992; Pakistan Intl Airlines A300B4; near Katmandu, Nepal: The crew was flying the aircraft was flying an approach about 1600 feet (1000 meters) lower than planned when the aircraft collided with high ground. The event happened in daylight and with cloud shrouding the mountains. All 12 crew and 155 passengers were killed

26 Apr 1994; China Airlines A300-600; Nagoya, Japan: Crew errors led to the aircraft stalling and crashing during approach. All 15 crew and 249 of the 264 passengers were killed.

24 Dec 1994; Air France A300; Algiers Airport, Algeria: Hijackers killed 3 of the 267 passengers. Later, comman- dos retook the aircraft and killed four hijackers. 

26 Sep 1997; Garuda Indonesian Airways A300B4; near Medan, Indonesia: The aircraft was on approach to Medan on a flight from Jakarta when it crashed in a mountainous area about 19 miles (30 km) from the airport. Extensive smoke and haze from numerous forest fires caused reduced visibility in the area. All 12 crew members and 222 passengers were killed.

16 Feb 1998; China Airlines A300-600; near Taipei, Taiwan: The aircraft crashed into a residential area short of the runway during its second landing attempt. The scheduled flight had been inbound from the island of Bali in Indonesia. The event occurred under conditions of darkness with rain and reduced visibility due to fog. All 15 crew and 182 passengers were killed. At least seven persons on the ground were also killed.

24 Dec 1999; Indian Airlines A300; near Katmandu, Nepal: The flight was hijacked shortly after takeoff. The hijackers killed one of the 173 passengers, but none of the 11 crew members.

A310 Fatal Events  31 Jul 1992; Thai International A310-300; near Katmandu, Nepal: The aircraft had a controlled flight into terrain about 22.5 miles (36 km) from the airport after apparently using an incorrect procedure for a missed approach. All 14 crew and 99 passengers were killed.

22 Mar 1994; Russian Intl Airways A310; near Novokuz- netsk, Russia: Lost control and crashed after the captain had allowed at least one child to manipulate the flight controls. All 12 crew and 63 passengers were killed 

31 Mar 1995; Tarom Romanian Airlines A310; near Balotesti Romania: Aircraft crashed shortly after taking off in a snowstorm. All 10 crew and 50 passengers died.

11 Dec 1998; Thai Airways Intl A310-200; near Surat Thani, Thailand: During its third landing attempt, the aircraft crashed just outside the Surat Thani airport. The aircraft was on a domestic flight from Bangkok to Surat Thani. There were 90 fatalities among the 132 passengers and 11 fatalities among the 14 crew members.

30 Jan 2000; Kenya Airways A310-300; near Abidjan, Ivory Coast: The aircraft crashed into the Atlantic Ocean shortly after taking off at night for a flight from Abidjan to Lagos, Nigeria. All 11 crew members and 158 of the 168 passengers were killed.

A320 Fatal Events  26 Jun 1988; Air France A320; near Mulhouse-Habsheim Airport, France: The aircraft crashed into trees during an air show maneuver when the aircraft failed to gain height during a low pass with the gear extended. Three of the 136 passengers died. 

14 Feb 1990; Indian Airlines A320; Bangalore, India: Controlled flight into terrain during approach. Aircraft hit about 400m short of the runway. Four of the seven crew members and 88 of the 139 passengers were killed.

20 Jan 1992; Air Inter A320; near Strasbourg, France: Aircraft had a controlled flight into terrain after the flight crew incorrectly set the flight mgmnt system. Five of the six crew and 82 of the 87 passengers died. 

14 Sep 1993; Lufthansa A320-200; Warsaw Airport, Poland: Aircraft landed with a tail wind. Landing performance and aircraft design led to a late deployment of braking devices. Aircraft overran the runway. One of the 6 crew and 1 of the 64 passengers were killed.

23 Aug 2000; Gulf Air A320; Near Manama, Bahrain: The aircraft was making a third attempt to land at the Bahrain Intl Airport after a flight from Cairo when the aircraft crashed into the sea about three miles (4.8 km) from the airport. All eight crew members and 135 passengers were killed. 

Fatal Airbus Events and Useful Info for the Traveling Public airsafe.com/events/models/airbus.htm - 23 Aug 2000