According to data compiled by the Aviation Safety Network (ASN), 83 aircraft which carried more than 14 passengers have been reported missing since 1948 across the world, and that doesn’t count the smaller aircraft. Of those total disappearances, six of them actually occurred in the same general region as the recent airplane disappearance near Malaysia.
The first reported airplane disappearance in this region was near the Gulf of Martaban in southern Burma on August 12, 1932. Two passengers, GW Salt and FB Taylor, who were attempting to fly from Burma to England disappeared in mid flight, and although their flight was said to have crashed, the wreckage was never recovered.
Three years later on November 8, 1935, Charles Kingsford Smith, was attempting to break an aircraft speed record when he lost contact somewhere over the Andaman Sea. His plane was also never found.
Decades later, on February 3, 1961, Garuda Indonesia Airlines flight PK-GDY disappeared near Madura Island in Indonesia. There were 21 passengers on board and the wreckage was never found.
In 1974, somewhere over the South China Sea, Hurricane Hunter flight Swan 38, from the 54th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron disappeared during a typhoon.
On February 13, 1983, Upali Air flight N482U disappeared in the Malacca Straits, near Malaysia.
More recently, on January 31, 1993, a Pan Malaysian Air Transport plane disappeared. The plane reportedly lost contact near Northern Sumatra, and no evidence of a crash was ever discovered.
Now, over the past few weeks the entire world has joined in on the search for the missing Malaysian flight that had 239 people on board. The Malaysian government has claimed that the airplane crashed into the sea, but as with the other cases, there has yet to be any conclusive evidence showing where the plane ended up.
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