In
aviation
Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot ...
, a controlled flight into terrain (CFIT; usually ) is an
accident in which an
airworthy aircraft, under
pilot control, is unintentionally flown into the ground, a mountain, a body of water or an obstacle.
In a typical CFIT scenario, the
crew is unaware of the impending disaster until it is too late. The term was coined by engineers at
Boeing
The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and ...
in the late 1970s.
Accidents where the aircraft is out of control at the time of impact, because of mechanical failure or
pilot error, are not considered CFIT (they are known as ''uncontrolled flight into terrain'' or ''UFIT''), nor are incidents resulting from the deliberate action of the person at the controls, such as acts of
terrorism
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
or
suicide by pilot.
According to Boeing in 1997, CFIT was a leading cause of airplane accidents involving the loss of life, causing over 9,000 deaths since the beginning of the commercial
jet aircraft
A jet aircraft (or simply jet) is an aircraft (nearly always a fixed-wing aircraft) propelled by jet engines.
Whereas the engines in propeller-powered aircraft generally achieve their maximum efficiency at much lower speeds and altitudes, je ...
.
CFIT was identified as a cause of 25% of
USAF Class A mishaps between 1993 and 2002. According to data collected by the