Seven Hundred Dead or Missing this Year in Plane Tragedies
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Purestock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — The numbers are stark, and chilling.
Four commercial planes have crashed or disappeared in just four months this year and, perhaps more startlingly, 700 lives have been lost.
The latest news of tragedy in the skies came Thursday morning, when an Air Algerie plane flying over Africa with 116 aboard disappeared off radar.
The disappearance comes on the heels of two other high-profile incidents: the crash of TransAsia Flight 222 in Taiwan Wednesday, which killed 47, and the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in Ukraine last week, which had 298 aboard.
Earlier this spring, the world was stunned when Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared, taking 239 people with it. It has not yet been found.
The countries hit hardest by these plane tragedies have been the Netherlands, with 193 dead or missing, and China, with 153 dead or missing.
Malaysia had a high number of passengers on both MH370 and MH17, and lost 81 of its residents this year.
France, Taiwan, Indonesia and Australia have all lost dozens of citizens in the tragedies.
The United States lost three residents aboard MH370 and one dual U.S.-Dutch resident aboard MH17.
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