10.Amelia Earhart Disappears
10. 神秘消失的阿梅利亞·埃爾哈特
In June 1937, celebrated aviator Amelia Earhart set out to become the first woman to fly around the world, a trip of 29,000 miles (46,671 kilometers). She'd completed all but the final 7,000 miles (11,265 kilometers) by July 2, when she and her navigator Fred Noonan took off from Lae in Papua, New Guinea, for a 2,556-mile (4,114-kilometer) flight to Howland Island, a small island in the Pacific.
1937年，著名女飛行家阿梅利亞·埃爾哈特正為成為第一個環球女飛行員做準備，整個航程長達4萬6千公裡。在當年7月2日，她只剩最後1萬1千公裡的飛行。當時她正準備和她的領航員努南一起從巴布亞紐幾內亞出發，計劃飛行4千公裡後到達一個名為豪蘭島的太平洋小島。
A U.S. Coast Guard cutter, the Itasca, was stationed just off shore, and two other ships were positioned along the flight route as markers for Earhart's plane. Nevertheless, the plane ran into overcast skies and intermittent rain showers that made celestial navigation, Noonan's favorite method, difficult. The next morning at 7:42, the Itasca picked up this radio transmission from Earhart: "We must be on you, but we cannot see you. Fuel is running low." About an hour later, Earhart radioed, "We are running north and south"
除了一支駐紮在該島的美國海岸警衛隊船隻「依塔斯克」號外，航線上還有兩艘船可幫助埃爾哈特的飛機導航。之後飛機選擇在一個雨天出發。起飛之後，糟糕的天氣讓努南無法好好發揮他拿手的天文導航。第二天7點42分時，依塔斯克號接收到來自埃爾哈特的呼叫。埃爾哈特稱他們的飛機應該就在依塔斯克號上方，可是看不見它，燃油也快用完了。一個小時之後，埃爾哈特又呼叫稱他們在南北向飛行。
That was her last transmission, and her plane never arrived. Rescuers mounted, what was at the time, the most massive search in aviation history, searching 250,000 square miles (647,497 square kilometers) of ocean in a fruitless attempt to find her. Some believe the plane crashed in the ocean and the passengers were killed; others, that they survived the crash but died of thirst on a remote island, or else that they were taken alive as hostages by the Japanese who though they were spies [source: Roach and Than]. To this day, Earhart and Noonan's fate remains a mystery.
這是她最後一次呼叫，她的飛機卻從未著陸。之後，當時歷史上最大的一次搜救行動開始了。搜救隊員搜索了將近6萬5千平方公裡的海域之後卻顆粒無收。有些人認為飛機已經在海上墜毀，機組人員均遇難。而也有認為機組人員在飛機墜落後倖存下來了，卻因為迫降到荒島最後死於脫水。還有人認為他們被日軍當成間諜抓走了。時至今日，埃爾哈特和努南的命運依舊是個謎。
9. What Does STENDEC Mean?
9. STENDEC是什麼意思？
In August 1947, a British airliner containing 11 people took off from Buenos Aires on a flight to Santiago, Chile, and vanished, apparently just a few minutes before landing. The only clue it left was a puzzling Morse code message, "STENDEC," which was the final transmission from the plane. The word was transmitted three times.
1947年8月，一架載著11名乘客的英國班機從布宜諾斯艾利斯飛往智利聖地牙哥，結果卻在著落前幾分鐘突然消失。飛機消失前最後的訊息是一串謎一般的摩爾斯電碼「STENDEC」，這個信號向地面發送了三次。
Fifty-three years later in 2000, an expedition of searchers finally found the missing plane, which had crashed into a mountain about 31 miles (50 kilometers) from its destination. A glacier had entombed it in ice. Examination of the engines showed no mechanical failure, but accident investigators hit upon another possible explanation. They decided that the plane probably had flown high to avoid bad weather and run into a jet stream, a high-speed wind whose existence had not yet been discovered. That wind would have slowed down the aircraft, so that when it started descending it was not as close to the airport as the pilot thought and so headed toward the mountain. But even so, nobody has ever figured out the meaning of the last message sent by the plane, which for years has defied myriad efforts to decipher it.
53年之後的2000年，一組探險隊在距目的地50公裡外的一座山裡找到了這架墜毀的飛機，被埋在冰山裡。調查人員發現飛機引擎沒有任何故障，於是他們推論可能當時飛機為了避開糟糕的天氣只能繼續爬升，在上升過程中遇到了一股噴射氣流，目前尚未發現這種高速氣流。這股氣流使得飛機飛行速度下降，所以當駕駛員以為飛機已經靠近機場，準備著陸時，實則距離機場很遠，因此最後不幸撞上了山脈一側。儘管花費了大量人力物力，至今沒有人能破譯出STENDEC到底是什麼意思。
8. Was It an Alien Spacecraft?
8. 是外星飛船嗎？
In January 1948, Capt. Thomas Mantell, a Kentucky Air National Guard pilot, and some other pilots took off in P-51 Mustang fighters from the airfield at Fort Knox, pursuing a rapidly moving, westbound, circular object. The other pilots called off the chase when the large, metallic object elevated to 22,500 feet (6,858 meters) in altitude, and they returned safely. (The danger zone for flying without oxygen begins at 14,000 feet, or 4,267 meters.) But Mantell kept following this strange aircraft. His plane tumbled from the sky and crashed in Kentucky.
1948年1月，空軍上尉託馬斯·曼特爾與其他幾位飛行員從諾克斯堡空軍基地，駕駛P-51戰鬥機追蹤一個高速向西移動的圓形飛行物。其他飛行員在這架不明飛行物飛至6800米高空時停止追蹤並安全返航（海拔4267米往上就是飛行危險區，因為氧氣不足）。但曼特爾上尉繼續追蹤飛行物，最後飛機墜毀在肯塔基州。
The official explanation was that he lost consciousness from a lack of oxygen, but questions remain about why he kept going and what he was following so intently. Air Force officials initially said Mantell had mistakenly followed planet Venus, but some witnesses thought he had seen a spaceship or some other UFO. The object is now believed to be a Skyhook weather balloon used to measure radiation levels that was part of a secret project .
官方解釋稱由於他飛行過高達到無氧高度，整個人因缺氧失去意識才導致飛機墜毀。但許多人仍不理解為何他要一直跟蹤這個不明飛行物，這個飛行物又是什麼。雖然空軍官員表示曼特爾是錯將金星當成了目標，但有目擊者聲稱看見一個類似UFO的物體。現在有消息稱這個不明物體可能是一個氣象氣球，當時它正在執行一個秘密任務，測量輻射水平。
7. The Missing H-bomb
7. 失蹤的氫彈
During a routine training mission off the coast of Georgia in February 1958, a B-47 bomber accidentally collided with an F-86 fighter jet whose pilot didn't see the bomber on his radar. The crash tore the left wing off the fighter and severely damaged the bomber's fuel tanks. The bomber pilot, Air Force Col. Howard Richardson, was confronted with an agonizing dilemma. His aircraft happened to be carrying a 7,000-pound (3,175-kilogram) H-bomb, and Richardson was worried that the bomb would break loose from his damaged plane when he tried to land.
1958年在一次常規訓練任務中，一架B-47轟炸機在空中突然與一架F-86戰鬥機相撞，當時戰鬥機雷達上並沒有這架轟炸機的信號。激烈的撞擊使戰鬥機左翼全部撞斷，而轟炸機的油箱則嚴重損毀。這種情況下，轟炸機駕駛員霍華德·理察森面臨著一個痛苦的抉擇。因為當時轟炸機上恰好攜帶了一枚3千公斤重的氫彈，理察森擔心他迫降時氫彈會從破損的飛機上掉下。
To avoid that situation, he went with his only other option, and dumped the bomb into the waters off Tybee Island, Ga., before landing at Hunter Air Force Base outside Savannah. The Navy searched for the lost bomb for more than two months, without success, and for decades, its location has remained a mystery. The Air Force says the bomb presents little hazard if left undisturbed .
為避免災難發生，他只有一條路可選。在降落至亨特空軍基地前，將氫彈投入附近的泰比島。之後海軍在小島附近的海域搜索了2個多月，卻沒有發現炮彈的蹤跡。這枚炮彈的下落至今仍是一個謎。空軍稱氫彈在無幹擾的環境中幾乎沒有任何威脅。
6. The Vietnam War Casualties Who Never Got to Vietnam
6. 從未去過越南的越戰死者
These lost men have never had their names added to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. Even more oddly, no government agency — not the Army, Air Force, Pentagon, State Department, National Archives or CIA — admits to possessing any records about the mission. Yet in March 1962, Flying Tiger Line Flight 739, containing 93 U.S. military advisers, three South Vietnamese officers and 11 crew members, vanished between Guam and the Philippines on the way to Vietnam. No wreckage was ever found, though some witnesses reported seeing a vapor trail and explosion in the sky on the night it disappeared.
這些遇難者的名字從未被加進華盛頓的越戰紀念碑上。更奇怪的是，從空軍、五角大樓、國防部、中情局到國家檔案館，沒有一個政府機構有過這項任務的記錄。但事實上在1962年3月，載著93名美軍顧問、3位南越官員以及11名機組成員的飛虎航空739航班在飛向越南的途中，消失在了關島和菲律賓群島之間。雖然有目擊者聲稱在飛機消失的當夜，他們在天空中看到了凝結尾跡和爆炸，但飛機殘骸直到今天都沒有被找到。
Some speculate that the aircraft was downed by Viet Cong sabotage, which would make the passengers among the first casualties of the Vietnam War. Others believe it was brought down by friendly fire. Eerily, at least three soldiers told their family members they had a premonition that they would not return from this mission alive.
有人懷疑飛機是被越共擊落，而遇難者便成為了越戰的第一批死者。還有人懷疑飛機是被美軍誤射。奇怪的是，至少有三名士兵在出發前告訴他們的家人，他們預感此次任務他們會有去無回。
5. An Artistic Disappearance
5. 最富有藝術氣息的飛機失蹤
A Boeing 707 cargo plane containing 153 paintings by famed Brazilian-Japanese painter Manabu Mabe worth about $1.2 million, took off from Narita International Airport in Tokyo in January 1979. The plane, operated by Varig Airlines, was scheduled to stop in Los Angeles and continue on to Rio de Janeiro.
1979年，一架波音707貨機從日本成田機場起飛。飛機上裝載著153幅日裔巴西畫家家馬部學的作品，價值120萬美金。該機屬巴西航空，原計劃經停洛杉磯之後飛往目的地裡約熱內盧，但從此飛機離奇失蹤。
But it never got there. Instead, when the plane was north of Tokyo, about 30 minutes after takeoff, air traffic controllers lost contact with the pilot. No trace of the plane, the cargo or its six-person crew has ever been found.
事實上，當飛機起飛30分鐘後，位於在東京北部時，地面空管就與駕駛員失去聯絡了。自此，這架飛機以及它上面的貨物和6名機組人員從地球上消失得無影無蹤。
4. Mechanical Failure or Suicide?
4. 機械故障還是自殺？
This one sparked an international controversy. On Oct. 30, 1999, EgyptAir Flight 990 took off from Kennedy Airport in New York bound for Cairo with 217 people aboard. A senior pilot named Ahmad al-Habashi was in command of the Boeing 767 jetliner, and a veteran co-pilot, Gameel al-Batouti, was assisting him.
這次空難在全球頗具爭議。1999年10月30日，埃及航空航班990從紐約甘迺迪機場起飛，飛往目的地開羅。機上共有217人，機長為資深飛行員艾哈穆德.阿爾.哈巴西，副駕駛是有多年飛行經驗的埃爾巴圖迪。
The plane climbed to 33,000 feet (10 kilometers) and flew normally for 30 minutes, before plummeting into the Atlantic Ocean 60 miles (97 kilometers) south of Nantucket, Mass., killing everyone aboard .
飛機攀升至1萬米高空正常飛行了30分鐘後，突然一頭扎向楠塔基特島附近的大西洋海域，機上全體人員無一倖免全部遇難。
So what caused the accident? Egyptian officials believed that mechanical failure was to blame, stating that suicide is against Islam. But the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) concluded that the co-pilot had deliberately caused the crash, citing that the autopilot was off, the plane was in a wings-level dive and the co-pilot muttered calmly to himself, "I rely on God" many times. The final report said that the crash was due to the co-pilot's "manipulation of the airplane controls," a claim Egypt still disputes [source: Wald].
飛機失事原因究竟是什麼？埃及官員認為是飛機引擎故障導致了這次空難，因為伊斯蘭教禁止自殺。但是美國國家運輸安全委員會認為是副駕駛故意造成了墜機，因為自動駕駛儀在墜毀前遭關閉，飛機急速向下俯衝入水，同時副駕駛異常平靜地重複念道「我信奉上帝」。最後的調查報告認定此次事故是由副駕駛對於飛機操控失誤引起，但埃及方面一直不同意該結論。
However, one EgyptAir pilot told the FBI that Batouti had just been demoted because of accusations of sexual misconduct, and might have crashed the plane to commit suicide or to take revenge against his supervisor, who was a passenger on the flight .
然而，有埃航飛行員告訴中情局，巴圖迪之前剛剛因為性醜聞遭受降職處分，因此他可能通過這樣極端的方式自殺。亦或者，因為他的上級當時也在這班飛機上，他選擇同歸於盡對上級進行報復。
3. The Stolen Airliner
3. 被偷走的飛機
In May 2003, a Boeing 727 owned by a Florida-based leasing company, was undergoing repairs at an airport in Luanda, Angola. Suddenly, it rolled onto a runway without getting permission from the tower and took off to the southwest in an erratic fashion, with lights off and no transponder signaling.
2003年的5月，一架佛羅裡達租賃公司的飛機正在安哥拉首都羅安達進行檢修。突然飛機沒有經過塔臺允許就擅自衝出跑道，往西南方向飛去。機上所有燈光關閉也沒有發出任何信號。
On board were Ben Charles Padilla, an experienced mechanic and flight engineer who was supervising the repairs, and his recently hired Congolese assistant, John Mikel Mutantu. Neither was trained to fly a 727 – Padilla had only a private pilot's license, and Mutantu had nothing. But both men and the plane disappeared and were never seen again.
當時機上人員只有一名資深機械和飛機工程師本·查爾斯·帕迪拉和他最近僱傭的剛果籍助手約翰·麥可·木塔圖。二人均不懂如何操控波音727。帕迪拉只有私人飛機駕駛員執照，而木塔圖則未取得任何飛行執照。但兩人和飛機就此消失，從未再出現過。
Authorities initially suspected that terrorists might be responsible, or else it was an insurance scam. Now they seem to lean toward some sort of hijacking for profit.
官方一度懷疑是恐怖分子所為，或是為了騙保。但現在他們傾向於綁架換取贖金的說法。
2. The Ghost Plane
2. 幽靈飛機
This was one of the most horrifying incidents in aviation history. In August 2005, Helio Airways Flight 522 was on a short trip from Cyprus to Greece, when it veered slightly off course. Nineteen radio requests were sent for an explanation but there was no response.
本次空難大概是航空史上最可怕的事故之一。2005年8月，赫利奧航空522次航班正執行賽普勒斯至希臘的短程航線。飛機在飛行途中略有偏離原定航線，當時向飛機發送了19個無線電要求做出解釋，但均沒有得到回應。
Finally, two F-16s caught up with the plane to see what was going on, and their pilots saw that the captain's chair was empty and the co-pilot appeared to be unconscious, with his oxygen mask dangling from the ceiling. All the passengers were frozen to their seats, at temperatures of minus 58 F (minus 50 C).
最後兩架F16戰鬥機被派出去調查522次航班究竟發生了什麼，卻看到了駭人聽聞的一幕，機長座位上空無一人，副駕駛似乎處於昏迷狀態，氧氣面罩已經從艙頂吊落，所有乘客都凍死在座位上，艙內溫度則跌至零下50度。
The fighters followed the "ghost plane" as it flew on autopilot until it ran out of fuel and crashed into a hillside. The official report by Greek authorities concluded that the pilots had somehow incompetently left the plane's pressurization system in manual mode after takeoff, so the plane didn't automatically repressurize when cabin pressure was lost. Further, the pilots failed to recognize the warning signs that the cabin was losing pressure -- and oxygen -- until it was too late. But that explanation fails to satisfy those who suspect that the aircraft was haunted .
戰鬥機緊緊跟著這架處於自動駕駛模式的「幽靈飛機」直到它燃油耗盡，最後撞毀在山腰上。希臘政府的官方報告稱駕駛員在飛機起飛後，啟動了手動增壓模式。所以飛機機艙失壓後，沒能自動增壓。此外，飛行員也沒有發現機艙壓力和氧氣不足的警告信號，最終導致了悲劇的發生。但是有人認為飛機是受到了神秘詛咒。
1. Was a Sleepy Pilot to Blame?
1. 該歸罪於睡著的駕駛員嗎？
In an accident reminiscent of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Air France Flight 447 disappeared over a stretch of the ocean where there was no radar coverage. In June 2009, this Airbus A330-200 airliner carrying 216 passengers and 12 crew members disappeared over the Atlantic en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.
在馬航370之前，也有一起類似的空難事故，那就是法航447。2009年6月，這架空客A330-200飛機帶著216名乘客和12名機組人員在裡約熱內盧至巴黎的航線上消失在大西洋上。
For several days, no one knew what had happened. But even after wreckage was spotted and recovered, the circumstances remained murky. The state-of-the-art jet was equipped with the latest tracking and communication equipment, yet it hadn't emitted a distress signal at any point. Two years later, the plane's black boxes were finally recovered from the ocean.
一連幾天，沒有人知道發生了什麼。即使後來飛機殘骸被定位打撈上來之後，謎團依舊未解開。作為當時技術最頂尖擁有最新追蹤通訊設備的飛機，它在失事前卻沒有發出任何一點信號。事故過去兩年後，飛機的黑盒子才從海裡被打撈上來。
French air safety investigators concluded in a 2012 report that the tragedy likely had been caused by an odd cascade of errors. Ice crystals accumulated on a probe, causing it to give incorrect speed readings and the autopilot system to disengage. The aircraft's two co-pilots, who were in charge at the time because the captain was taking a break, apparently became confused by the malfunction. By the time the captain rejoined them 90 seconds later, the airplane already was in a stall that he could not avert. The plane crashed two minutes and thirty seconds later.
法航安全調查員在2012年的報告中稱這起災難可能是由一連串詭異的過失引起的。空速管上的冰柱導致它提供的速度讀數不準確，而且造成自動駕駛儀失效。而當時由於機長正在小憩，飛機是由兩名副駕駛在操控，經驗不足讓他們無法正確應對故障。但等出事90秒後機長回到駕駛室，他已經回天乏術。2分30秒後，飛機墜毀。
Why it took the captain so long to respond to the co-pilots' frantic calls for help has never been explained. News media reported that the captain was accompanied on the flight by a female companion, and that he'd only slept one hour the night before.
直到現在大家依舊不知道為什麼副駕駛急迫呼救之後過了那麼久機長才現身。有新聞媒體報導稱當時機長身邊有一名女性同行，而在飛行前夜他只睡了1小時。
英文來源： How Stuff Works
中文來源：由CNKI學術搜索微信公眾號整理翻譯
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