Every emergency landing makes headlines. Only a handful change aviation forever.
Some exposed weaknesses nobody had seen before. Others proved just how effective training, CRM, engineering, and decision-making can be under extreme pressure. In many cases, the procedures and systems used across the industry today were written in response to these flights.
Here are 10 emergency landings and incidents that left a lasting mark on commercial aviation.
1. United Airlines Flight 232 (1989)
When the tail-mounted engine on the DC-10 suffered an uncontained failure, debris severed all three hydraulic systems, something engineers considered virtually impossible.
With almost no conventional flight control remaining, the crew used asymmetric thrust from the two remaining engines to steer the aircraft toward Sioux City.
The accident fundamentally changed thinking around hydraulic redundancy, survivability, and Crew Resource Management (CRM). To this day, UA232 remains one of the most studied examples of teamwork under pressure in aviation history.
2. US Airways Flight 1549 “Miracle on the Hudson” (2009)
Bird strikes are common. Losing both engines after departure from LaGuardia is not.
Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger and First Officer Jeffrey Skiles ditched the A320 in the Hudson River after a dual-engine failure caused by geese ingestion shortly after takeoff.
Beyond becoming one of the most famous emergency landings ever, the flight reinforced the importance of simulator training, decision-making under time pressure, and bird strike mitigation around major airports.
3. British Airways Flight 9 (1982)
Cruising near Jakarta at night, the 747 unknowingly entered a volcanic ash cloud from Mount Galunggung.
One by one, all four engines failed.
The crew managed to restart the engines after descending out of the ash cloud and safely landed in Jakarta. The incident completely changed global understanding of volcanic ash hazards and led to major improvements in ash detection, forecasting, and avoidance procedures.
Today, volcanic ash SIGMETs and exclusion zones exist largely because of flights like BA9.
4. Air Canada Flight 143 “The Gimli Glider” (1983)
A fuel calculation error during Canada’s transition to metric measurements left this Boeing 767 with far less fuel than required.
At FL410, both engines flamed out.
The crew glided the aircraft to a successful landing at a former air force base in Gimli, Manitoba, which had partially been converted into a racetrack at the time.
The incident became a textbook case in human factors, unit conversion risk, and checklist discipline.
5. Aloha Airlines Flight 243 (1988)
Shortly after departure from Hilo, a large section of the aircraft’s upper fuselage tore away due to structural fatigue and metal cracking.
Despite catastrophic decompression and severe damage, the crew landed the aircraft safely in Maui.
The accident triggered widespread changes to ageing-aircraft inspection programmes, fatigue monitoring, and corrosion prevention, particularly for high-cycle aircraft operating short sectors.
6. TACA Flight 110 (1988)
Flying through severe weather near New Orleans, the Boeing 737 suffered dual engine flameouts after heavy hail and water ingestion.
The crew successfully dead-sticked the aircraft onto a levee beside NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility.
The event reshaped thinking around convective weather penetration, engine certification limits, and airborne weather radar use.
7. British Airways Flight 38 (2008)
On final approach into Heathrow, the Boeing 777 lost thrust on both engines due to ice crystals restricting fuel flow through the fuel-oil heat exchangers.
The aircraft landed short of the runway but remained largely intact.
The investigation led to design modifications for the Trent 800 fuel system and raised industry awareness around high-altitude ice crystal icing phenomena.
8. Qantas Flight 32 (2010)
Shortly after departure from Singapore, an uncontained engine failure on the A380 triggered a cascade of system failures unlike anything most crews had ever seen.
Hydraulics, electrics, fuel systems, flight controls, the ECAM messages seemed endless.
What followed became one of the clearest modern examples of disciplined CRM, workload management, and procedural flying. The incident also prompted extensive reviews into engine manufacturing and systems redundancy on next-generation aircraft.
9. Air Transat Flight 236 (2001)
A maintenance error caused a fuel leak that eventually led to total fuel exhaustion over the Atlantic.
The A330 glided more than 65 nautical miles before landing safely in the Azores.
The incident reinforced the importance of ETOPS maintenance standards, fuel leak recognition, and decision-making during long-range oceanic operations.
10. Japan Airlines Flight 123 (1985)
The deadliest single-aircraft accident in history began with the failure of an improperly repaired rear pressure bulkhead.
The resulting decompression severed hydraulic lines and left the crew fighting for control for more than 30 minutes before impact.
Although the flight did not end in a survivable emergency landing, its impact on aviation safety was enormous. Structural inspection procedures, repair oversight, and maintenance quality assurance changed significantly in the years that followed.
Aviation Safety Is Written in Lessons Learned
Modern commercial aviation safety is built on decades of investigation, analysis, and procedural improvement, often following incidents that pushed aircraft and crews to their absolute limits.
Many of the systems, training standards, and operational procedures now considered routine exist because crews faced situations nobody had planned for and managed to bring the aircraft home.
And in some cases, they did it with almost nothing left to work with.
