This brand new (38 days; TT 202 hours) Boeing 737-800 crashed in September 2006
Two recent accident involving brand new Boeing 737 MAX aircraft caused a global grounding of the type over fears relating to a malfunctioning safety feature specific to the 737 MAX. How does the age of both aircraft relate to previous aircraft accidents?
Focussing on fatal aircraft accidents involving passenger flights, the ASN databases shows (for available data! *) that there was at least one aircraft that crashed within a month of having first flown. A Braniff Lockheed Electra crashed 25 days following its first flight and just 11 days after having been delivered to the airline. A subsequent accident in March 1960 under similar circumstances revealed an engine mount problem on the outboard engines that allowed propeller oscillations to be transmitted to the wings, resulting in a structural failure of the wing in flight. This finding led to operational speed restrictions of the aircraft before modifications were carried out.
| Age (days) | Date | Aircraft type | Operator | Fatalities |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | 1959-09-29 | Lockheed L-188A Electra | Braniff | 34 |
| 34 | 1967-03-11 | DHC-6 Twin Otter 100 | Aeralpi | 4 |
| 38 | 2006-09-29 | Boeing 737-8EH | Gol | 154 |
| 52 | 1968-03-05 | Boeing 707-328C | Air France | 63 |
| 69 | 1959-02-03 | Lockheed L-188A Electra | American Airlines | 65 |
| 72 | 1960-01-19 | Caravelle | SAS | 42 |
| 74 | 1961-09-23 | Fokker F-27 Friendship | THY | 28 |
| 75 | 1968-04-20 | Boeing 707-344C | SAA | 123 |
| 87 | 1948-01-30 | Avro 688 Tudor 1 | BSAA | 31 |
| 90 | 1965-08-16 | Boeing 727-22 | United Airlines | 30 |
| 91 | 2018-10-29 | Boeing 737 MAX 8 | Lion Air | 189 |
| 94 | 1989-01-08 | Boeing 737-4Y0 | BMA | 47 |
| 95 | 1968-11-23 | DHC-6 Twin Otter 200 | Cable Commuter | 9 |
| 107 | 1961-09-17 | Lockheed L-188C Electra | Northwest | 37 |
| 107 | 1962-07-19 | DH-106 Comet 4C | United Arab | 26 |
| 118 | 1961-09-12 | Caravelle III | Air France | 77 |
| 119 | 1962-06-22 | Boeing 707-328 | Air France | 113 |
| 125 | 1977-09-08 | DHC-6 Twin Otter 300 | Burma Airways | 25 |
| 126 | 1934-12-20 | Douglas DC-2 | KLM | 7 |
| 131 | 2019-03-10 | Boeing 737 MAX 8 | Ethiopian Airlines | 157 |
Looking at flight hours instead of age since first flight, the ASN databases shows (again, for available data! *):
| Flight hours | Date | Aircraft type | Operator | Fatalities |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 | 1948-07-01 | Fiat G.212PW | ALI | 8 |
| 35 | 1948-08-01 | Latécoère 631 | Air France | 52 |
| 46 | 1968-03-05 | Boeing 707-328C | Air France | 63 |
| 47 | 1926-08-18 | Blériot 155 | Air Union | 4 |
| 51 | 1949-05-13 | Ilyushin Il-12P | Aeroflot | 25 |
| 70 | 2002-12-23 | Antonov An-140 | Aeromist Kharkiv | 44 |
| 92 | 1949-08-25 | Ilyushin Il-12P | Aeroflot | 14 |
| 109 | 1960-02-26 | Antonov An-10A | Aeroflot | 32 |
| 111 | 1971-05-23 | Tupolev Tu-134A | Aviogenex | 78 |
| 111 | 1961-09-23 | Fokker F-27 | THY | 28 |
| 113 | 1948-09-04 | Lisunov Li-2 | Aeroflot | 6 |
| 124 | 1974-05-02 | Yakovlev Yak-40 | Aeroflot | 1 |
| 124 | 1961-07-11 | Douglas DC-8-12 | United Airlines | 17 |
| 128 | 1969-03-20 | Ilyushin Il-18D | United Arab | 100 |
| 132 | 1959-09-29 | Lockheed L-188A Electra | Braniff | 34 |
| 154 | 1963-04-04 | Ilyushin Il-18 | Aeroflot | 67 |
| 164 | 1966-10-01 | Douglas DC-9-14 | West Coast Airlines | 18 |
| 166 | 1947-12-18 | Ilyushin Il-12P | Aeroflot | 7 |
| 188 | 1993-03-05 | Fokker 100 | Palair | 83 |
| 202 | 2006-09-29 | Boeing 737-8EH | Gol | 154 |
The LionAir Boeing 737 MAX 8 that crashed in 2018 had logged 895 flying hours; total hours for the Ethiopian aircraft has not yet been reported.
Important notes:
- For 54% of all accidents the first flight date nor total aircraft time in flight hours are known. These lists can thus only be used as indicative.
- For most Russian accidents just the aircraft’s flight hours are known, hence the over-representation of these accidens in the flight hours-table.