Why Planes Crash? It's Often a Symphony of Failures

Airplane crashes are among the most tragic events in modern life.

They’re rare, yes, but when they happen, they leave a profound impact—not just on those directly affected but on the collective psyche of the society.

What’s striking, though, is that these disasters are almost never caused by a single failure. Instead, they’re the result of multiple things going wrong at the same time, creating a cascade of errors that no one could stop in time.

This idea has been haunting me lately, especially as I’ve followed the recent Jeju Air crash in South Korea and the Azerbaijan Airlines disaster.

These incidents aren’t just stories of technical malfunction or human error; they’re complex puzzles with pieces scattered across engineering, human behavior, and even geopolitics.

Let’s unpack this.

Why do so many things have to go wrong for a plane to crash? And what can these tragedies teach us—not just about aviation but about systems, decision-making, and even life?

The Anatomy of a Plane Crash

When you hear about a plane crash, your first instinct might be to look for the cause.

• Was it engine failure?
• Did the pilot make a mistake?
• Was there bad weather?

But aviation experts will tell you that it’s rarely that simple.

Crashes typically involve a series of interconnected failures—a concept known as the "Swiss Cheese Model" in safety science. Each layer of defense (or slice of cheese) has holes, and when those holes align, disaster strikes.

Take the Jeju Air crash just on 29 December 2024. The Boeing 737-800 was attempting to land at Muan International Airport after an overnight flight from Bangkok.

It wasn’t just one thing that went wrong:

• The landing gear likely malfunctioned.
• A bird strike reportedly caused engine issues.
• The plane collided with a concrete barrier at the end of the runway—a barrier that some experts argue shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

Any one of these issues might have been manageable on its own. But together? They created a situation where 179 lives were lost.

Now compare this to the 'Azerbaijan Airlines crash' on Christmas Day.

Early investigations suggest "external interference," possibly involving a Russian anti-aircraft system.

Again, it wasn’t just one factor—there were geopolitical tensions, potential lapses in airspace management, and technical vulnerabilities in play.

Human Error: The Most Common Thread

If you dig into aviation accident data, you’ll find that human error is overwhelmingly the leading cause of crashes.

Pilots are highly trained professionals, but they’re still human. They get tired. They misinterpret data. Sometimes, they make split-second decisions based on incomplete information.

In the Jeju Air crash, for instance, investigators will likely scrutinize how the pilot handled the bird strike and landing gear failure.

• Could better communication with air traffic control have made a difference?
• Did fatigue play a role after an overnight flight?

But here’s where it gets tricky: human error doesn’t exist in isolation. It’s often influenced by systemic issues like lapses in training protocols or something else.

In other words, when we blame "human error," we’re often ignoring the larger context that sets someone up to fail.

Mechanical Failures: Rare but Catastrophic

Modern airplanes are engineering marvels, designed with multiple redundancies to prevent catastrophic failures. Yet mechanical issues still account for about 20% of crashes. And when they do happen, they’re often devastating.

The Jeju Air crash highlights this perfectly.

A malfunctioning landing gear might seem like a minor issue—planes can and do land without them—but combined with other factors like engine trouble and that ill-placed concrete barrier, it became deadly.

What’s frustrating is that many mechanical failures are preventable with proper maintenance. But maintenance itself is subject to human error and organizational pressures like cost-cutting and tight schedules.

The Role of External Factors

Sometimes, external forces come into play—forces beyond anyone’s immediate control. Weather is an obvious example; storms and low visibility have been implicated in countless crashes over the years.

But external factors can also be geopolitical or even criminal in nature.

The Azerbaijan Airlines crash is a chilling reminder of this. If early reports are correct and a Russian anti-aircraft system was involved, then this wasn’t just an aviation accident—it was an act of violence with far-reaching implications.

Lessons from Tragedy

So what can we learn from all this?

For one thing, these crashes remind us that complex systems—whether they’re airplanes or organizations—are only as strong as their weakest link. When multiple weak links align, disaster becomes almost inevitable.

Here are a few takeaways:

• Redundancy is critical: Modern airplanes are designed with multiple layers of redundancy for a reason. But those redundancies need to be maintained and tested rigorously.
• Human factors matter: Pilots and air traffic controllers need not just technical skills but also support systems to help them manage stress and fatigue.
• Infrastructure can save—or cost—lives: The concrete barrier involved in the Jeju Air crash raises serious questions about airport design standards.
• Global cooperation is essential: In cases like Azerbaijan Airlines, where external interference may be involved, international aviation bodies need robust mechanisms for investigation and accountability.

Beyond Aviation: A Broader Perspective

As I reflect on these tragedies, I can’t help but see parallels beyond aviation.

This idea—that failure arises from multiple small issues rather than one big one—isn’t just relevant to aviation. It applies to any system where complexity reigns.

In any system—whether it’s a business, a government, or even our personal lives—failures rarely happen because of one isolated mistake. More often than not, they’re the result of multiple small issues compounding over time.

Think about businesses. When companies fail, it’s rarely because of one bad decision. It’s usually a mix of poor leadership, market misjudgments, operational inefficiencies, and external shocks like economic downturns. The collapse of FTX in 2022 is a prime example—what started as liquidity concerns snowballed into revelations about mismanagement and fraud.

When a bridge collapses, it isn't usually caused by a single issue like heavy traffic one day; it's often the result of years of inadequate maintenance, increased load beyond original specifications, environmental stressors, and material fatigue, all converging at once.

Or consider personal health. A 'diabetes' isn’t caused by one bad meal; it's often the result of years of poor diet, lack of exercise, obesity, and genetic predisposition all converging at once.

The key takeaway for me is this: we need to pay attention to systems.

Whether we’re designing and operating airplanes or managing our daily lives, success depends on understanding how all the pieces fit together—and how they can fail together.

Moving Forward

As we close out 2024—a year marked by both progress and tragedy—I find myself hoping that we can learn from these disasters in meaningful ways. Not just by improving aviation safety (though that’s obviously critical) but by applying these lessons more broadly.

Because if there’s one thing these crashes make clear, it’s this:

When things go wrong, it’s rarely because of just one thing. It’s because multiple things went wrong at the same exact time—and no one was prepared to stop them.

So let’s prepare better.

Let’s build systems that are resilient enough to withstand not just one failure but many.

And let’s remember that behind every statistic are real people whose lives were lost—not because of fate but because we didn’t do enough to prevent it.

Here’s hoping 2025 brings fewer tragedies—and more progress—in every sense of the word.