Recent plane crashes in Honduras and Ireland

In the past week, there have been two recent fatal plane crashes involving airline passengers.

14 February 2011; Central American Airways; Let 410; HR-AUQ; near Cerro de Hula, Honduras: The aircraft was on a domestic flight from San Pedro Sula to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and crashed into a forest while en route to its destination. Both crew members and all 12 passengers were killed.

The Let 410 is a twin turboprop aircraft model that had over 1100 deliveries starting in 1969. Initially, the aircraft were used almost exclusively by the former Soviet Union and by numerous countries in eastern Europe. There are several hundred still in service, some as commercial passenger airliners, though none are used in airline service in North America

While this airliner accident resulted in fatalities, it is not counted as a fatal event as defined by AirSafe.com.

10 February 2011; Manx2 Swearingen Metro III; Flight 7100; Cork, Ireland: The aircraft was on a scheduled international flight from Belfast, Northern Ireland to Cork, Ireland when it crashed near the destination airport. There were low visibility conditions at the time of the crash. On the crew's third landing attempt, the aircraft crashed adjacent to a taxiway, came to rest upside down, and caught fire. Both crew members and four of the ten passengers were killed.

These two crashes represent the third and fourth airliner crashes with passengers deaths in 2011. By comparison, in 2010, the fourth fatal passenger crash did not occur until the middle of May.

Photos: Processo, Sky News