Any footage of a commercial flight crashing from the cockpit?

Posted by Far-Event1151@reddit | aviation | View on Reddit | 13 comments

Just wondering if any such footage exists.

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Ficsit-Incorporated@reddit

Why would there be? And why would you want to see it even if it existed?

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Far-Event1151@reddit (OP)

Because learning how airplanes crash is a very important part of piloting.

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What a weird question in 2026. To answer, because everyone has cameras and there are a lot of cockpit videos. In the case of Air Niugini Flight 73, it was filmed by a maintenance engineer in the jump seat on his iPhone.

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MikeOfAllPeople@reddit

Same reason people watch channels like VASaviation. Learning and general interest.

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Kanyiko@reddit

From 1976 onwards, American Airlines experimented with cockpit cameras, allowing passengers to watch the aircraft to take off over a closed circuit television system.

However, this system did not record, it only broadcast 'live' within the aircraft to a handful of television sets mounted in the overhead luggage bins (this was way before seatback flatscreen TVs became a thing.

It's unknown what electrical system this CCTV was connected to - but one can only hope for the passengers of American Airlines Flight 191 that it was the number one electrical bus. If so, the camera's would have gone off-line. If not...

After that, American Airlines quietly phased out the 'Cockpit Camera'.

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Hodgetwins32@reddit

No.

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Far-Event1151@reddit (OP)

Seems surprising. Like there is footage of fighter jets crashing from the cockpit.

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Annual-Advisor-7916@reddit

That's because the pilots sometimes had action cams - not that likely on a civilian plane I'd say. Besides, you won't see much when an aircraft crashes apart from the moment exactly before the impact (assuming you are talking about severe/fatal crashes). A fighter pilot that ejected on the other hand has some pretty cool footage. For example that Su-25 that crashed a few years ago in Ukraine.

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