accident

An accident was originally simply ‘an event or mishap’.

It came into English in the Middle Ages via Old French from Latin, ultimately derivind from the Latin caders, meaning ‘to fall’, which also gave us words such as cadaver, chance, decay, incident and occasion. The idea of an event ‘falling’ remains in the English word, befall. Later the meaning of accident evolved into ‘something that happens by chance’, as in the phrase ‘a happy accident’, and by the 17th century the modern meaning had become established in the language.

The full form of the proverb ‘accidents will happen’, which dates from the early 19th century, is ‘accidents will happen in the best-regulated families. According to Mr Micawber in Charle’s Dickens’ David Copperfield (1850), ‘Accidents will occur in the best-regulated families; and in families not regulated by… the influence of Wamon, in the lofty character of Wife, they must be expected with confidence, and must be borne with philosophy’. See also ADVENTURE.

Why is it called an accident? When we call something an “accident” it implies that no one is at fault and that no one, including the driver, bears responsibility for the outcome. The term “crash,” on the other hand, is more specific in terms of the action’s outcome without the unpreventable implication.

Deadliest aircraft accidents and incidents (Deaths: Date of Incident – Location):

583: 27 March 1977 – Tenerife airport disaster Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain
520: 12 August 1985 – Japan Air Lines Flight 123 Ueno, Japan
349: 12 November – 1996 Charkhi Dadri mid-air collision Charkhi Dadri, Haryana, India
346: 3 March 1974 – Turkish Airlines Flight 981 Fontaine-Chaalis, France
301: 19 August 1980 – Saudia Flight 163 Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
298: 17 July 2014 – Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Hrabove, Ukraine
290: 3 July 1988 – Iran Air Flight 655 Bandar Abbas, Iran
275: 19 February 2003 – Ilyushin Il-76 crash Kerman, Iran
273: 25 May 1979 – American Airlines Flight 191 Des Plaines, Illinois, United States
269: 1 September 1983 – Korean Air Lines Flight 007 Sea of Japan, west of Sakhalin, Soviet Union
265: 12 November 2001 – American Airlines Flight 587 Queens, New York, United States

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