On January 13, 1982, Air Florida Flight 90, a Boeing 737-222, was a scheduled flight to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, from Washington National Airport, Washington, D.C. There were 74 passengers and 5 crewmembers on board. The flight was delayed about 1 hour 45 minutes due to a moderate to heavy snowfall. Shortly after takeoff the aircraft crashed at 1601 e.s.t. into the 14th Street Bridge over the Potomac River and plunged into the ice-covered river, 0.75 nmi from the departure end of runway 36. Four passengers and one crewmember survived the crash. Four persons in the vehicles on the bridge were killed; four were injured. The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the flightcrew's failure to use engine anti-ice during ground operation and takeoff, and to take off with snow/ice on the airfoil surfaces of the aircraft. Contributing to the accident were the ground delay between de-icing and takeoff clearance.

On December 20, 1995, American Airlines Flight 965, a Boeing 757-223, was on a scheduled passenger flight from Miami, Florida, U.S.A., to Cali, Colombia. Close to its final destination the pilots erroneously cleared the approach waypoints from their navigation computer. When the controller asked the pilots to check back in over Tulua, north of Cali, it was no longer programmed into the computer. They were lost and the aircraft crashed into a mountain. Of the 163 people on board, 4 passengers survived miraculously the accident.

During takeoff from runway 02 at Tamanrasset Aguenar aerodrome in Southern Algeria, on Thursday 6 March 2003, the left engine of a Boeing 737-200 from Air Algerie suffered a contained burst. The airplane swung to the left. The Captain took over the controls. The airplane lost speed progressively, stalled and crashed, with the landing gear still extended, about one thousand six hundred and forty-five meters from the takeoff point, to the left of the runway extended centerline. The crew of six and 96 of the 97 passengers were killed in the accident. The accident was caused by the loss of an engine during a critical phase of flight, the non-retraction of the landing gear after the engine failure, and the Captain, the PNF, taking over control of the airplane before having clearly identified the problem.

On February 24, 1989, United Airlines flight 811, a Boeing 747-122, lost a cargo door as it was climbing between 22,000 and 23,000 feet after taking off from Honolulu, Hawaii, en route to Sydney, Australia with 355 persons aboard. As a result of the incident nine of the passengers were ejected from the airplane and lost at sea. The cargo door was recovered in two pieces from the ocean floor at a depth of 14,200 feet on September 26 and October 1, 1990. The probable cause of this accident was a faulty switch or wiring in the door control system. Contributing to the cause of the accident was a deficiency in the design of the cargo door locking mechanisms. Also contributing to the accident was a lack of timely corrective actions by Boeing and the FAA following a 1987 cargo door opening incident on a Pan Am B-747.

On January 31, 2000, Alaska Airlines, Flight 261, a McDonnell Douglas MD-83, was on its way from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, to Seattle, Washington, when suddenly the horizontal stabilizer of the plane jammed. While passengers were praying for their life, Captain Thompson and First officer Tansky tried to make an emergency landing in Los Angeles. They did not make it, the plane suddenly crashed into the Pacific Ocean, killing all 93 people aboard. The NTSB concluded that the failure of the horizontal stabilizer was caused by insufficient maintenance. In other words the crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261 could have been avoided.

On May 25, 1979, American Airlines Flight 191, a McDonnell-Douglas DC-10-10 aircraft, on its way from Chicago to Los Angeles, crashed just after take-off near Chicago-O'Hare International Airport, Illinois. During the take off the left engine and pylon assembly and about 3 ft of the leading edge of the left wing separated from the aircraft and fell to the runway. Flight 191 crashed killing two hundred and seventy one persons on board and two persons on the ground. The accident remains the deadliest airliner accident to occur on United States soil.

On 14 September 2008 Aeroflot Flight 821, a Boeing 737-505, operated by Aeroflot-Nord, a subsidiary of the Russian airline Aeroflot, crashed on approach to Bolshoye Savino Airport, Perm, Russia. All 82 passengers and 6 crew members were killed. The aircraft was completely destroyed. According to the final investigation report, the main reason of the crash was pilot error. Both pilots had lost spatial orientation due to new instruments they were not familiar with, lack of proper training, insufficient knowledge of English and fatigue from lack of adequate rest. Alcohol in the Captain's blood may also have contributed to the accident.