Moments from disaster: From events that shook the world to personal tragedies… haunting final moments caught on camera and the stories behind them

Haunting photographs have for decades captured the eerie moments before disaster strikes. 

Often depicting normal, seemingly-happy scenes, these images serve as a chilling reminder of how people’s lives can change in an instant. 

Just last month, a woman’s final moments were caught on camera as she fell to her death down an underground passage with the video going viral. 

Arina Glazunova, 24, was being filmed by her friend singing and dancing through the streets of Tbilisi, Georgia, when she tripped over a wall and plummeted several feet down. 

She was rushed to hospital but later died of a broken neck and injuries to her head. 

Here, MailOnline takes a look at a series of harrowing photographs taken right before tragedy strikes. 

Indian ‘Houdini’ lowered into river 

This photograph shows the moment an Indian ‘Houdini’ was lowered into a river never to emerge. 

Magician Chanchal Lahiri, 40, attempted to perform the Houdini-inspired stunt in the Hooghly river in Kolkata in June 2019. 

He was lowered by winch into the water  wearing a yellow and red costume and with his legs and arms tightly bound by chains.

But to the horror of onlookers including his family, the 40-year-old failed to emerge from the water.

His body was later found by police following a frantic search. He had drowned. 

Lahiri said before the daredevil stunt he had successfully pulled off a similar feat 21 years ago at the same venue in Kolkata.

‘I was inside a bullet proof glass box tied with chain and locks and dropped down from Howrah bridge. Then I came out within 29 seconds.’

He admitted it would be tough to free himself this time.

‘If I can open it up then it will be magic, but if I can’t it will be tragic,’ he said.

Crew board doomed space shuttle 

This is the final photo taken of the crew of the doomed Space Shuttle Challenger that crashed during take off on January 28, 1986. 

Leading the crew is Commander Francis Richard Scobee, followed by Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Michael Smith, teacher Christa McAuliffe and Ellison Onizuka. Engineer Gregory Jarvis was also on board.

However, just 73 seconds after its launch, the spacecraft exploded over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all seven astronauts. 

The millions who had gathered to watch the launch, which included the crew’s families, watched in horror as the Challenger was engulfed in a ball of orange and white flames. 

‘The effing thing blew up,’ was all one cameraman could say in utter disbelief.

The accident was later blamed on a faulty seal in one of the shuttle’s rockets which compromised the fuel tanks.

A distraught President Ronald Reagan cancelled his annual State of the Union address and from the Oval Office told his nation: ‘The crew of the Challenger honoured us by the manner in which they lived their lives.

‘We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and slipped the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God.’

Plane crash survivors turn to cannibalism 

This photo was taken of the passengers on board Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 moments before it crashed in the Andes. 

The plane was carrying an amateur football team from Montevideo, Uruguay to Santiago, Chile when it went down. 

While 33 out of the 45 passengers and crew survived the initial impact, this number was soon reduced to 16 as people succumbed to the elements. 

And when the official search was called off after 10 days, the remaining passengers were forced to turn to cannibalism to survive. 

The dead bodies were preserved by the cold, allowing them to provide subsistence for the survivors for up to 72 days. 

Two of the survivors eventually gained enough strength to seek help and the rest of the crash victims were rescued.

The events became known as ‘The Miracle of the Andes’ and inspired a documentary and the Hollywood film Alive directed by Frank Marshall. 

Hiker snaps bear that kills him 

This is the photo a student took of a black bear moments before it mauled him to death. 

Darsh Patel, 22, was out hiking in the Apshawa Preserve in West Milford, New Jersey, when he was attacked in September 2014. 

The image shows the bear approaching a fallen tree just metres away from the group. 

‘They stopped and took photographs of the bear with their cellphones and the bear began walking towards them,’ a police report from the time said.

The friends then split up but unfortunately for Patel the bear followed. 

Police found the beast standing over the 22-year-old’s body before they shot it dead. 

Officers also recovered this photograph from his phone, which appeared to have been bitten by the bear.

 Boy, 14, falls from plane 

This grainy photograph captures the moment a teenage stowaway fell to his death from a Japan Airlines flight.

Sydney-born Keith Sapsford was only 14-years-old when he hid inside the wheel-well of the flight from Australia to Japan in 1970.

But the compartment of the DC-8 plane opened mid-air and the boy plummeted 60 metres (200ft) to the ground below near Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport.

Amateur photographer John Gilpin captured the remarkable image while taking pictures of planes during take-off. 

Mr Gilpin had no idea he had tragically recorded the youngster’s last moments until he developed the photographs a week later.

Keith managed to get onto the runway and climb into the open undercarriage of the plane bound for Tokyo, stowing himself in the same compartment where the wheel is tucked away after take-off.

He remained there for several hours before departure. 

Technicians believe the boy – who was dressed only in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt – was unaware the latch would reopen after take-off to bring the wheel back inside, which is when he fell. 

Hollywood legend James Dean 

This photograph shows Hollywood actor James Dean fuelling up his Porsche hours before the crash that killed him. 

The 24-year-old was travelling to a car rally in Salinas, California when he collided with a turning car at high speed on September 30, 1955. 

Dean’s passenger Rolf Wütherich, a mechanic and pilot, was ejected from the Porsche 550 Spyder but survived the crash. 

The actor, however, was trapped inside the car and sustained a number of fatal injuries including a broken neck. 

He was pronounced dead shortly after he arrived at hospital. 

Dean was a motor enthusiast and nicknamed his Porsche 550 Spyder ‘Little Bastard’. 

His acting career lasted just five years but he was widely considered the next big thing in Hollywood. 

He was known for his charisma and sex appeal, both on and off the camera. 

Lawyer jumps into ice hole 

This image shows the final moments before a lawyer was swept to her death in front of her children when she jumped into an ice hole in Russia.  

Mother-of-two Anna Uskova, 40, plunged feet-first into the Oredezh River to mark Orthodox Epiphany in January 2022. 

Her two young children screamed as she was pulled away by a powerful current.

The lawyer from St Petersburg was participating in a tradition followed annually by hundreds of thousands of Russian believers to mark the religious holiday. 

People believe that water blessed for the annual ceremony possesses special healing properties.

A hole had been cut into the thick ice and the air temperature was around -5C when Anna jumped in. 

She was wearing a black one-piece swimming costume and was seen crossing herself before holding her nose and hopping into the river.

Concorde runway horror 

This photograph was taken of Air France flight 4590 just moments before it went down almost immediately after takeoff, killing all on board. 

One hundred and nine passengers and crew and four others on the ground died when the Concorde plane crashed in Gonesse, a suburb of Paris, on July 25, 2000. 

The plane took off from Charles de Gaulle Airport at 4.43pm and was heading towards New York City. 

However, as it sped down the runway a fire started just under the left wing and by the time it left the ground one of the two engines on the left side had failed. 

The pilot only managed to climb 200 feet in the air before the other left-hand engine cut out and the plane dropped out of the sky. 

The Air France flight smashed into a small hotel and restaurant in suburban Gonesse. 

An investigation found the Concorde hit a metal strip on the runway during takeoff causing a tire to burst. 

A piece of rubber then struck the fuel tank which in turn caused the fire and the failure of the engines. 

The horror crash is thought to have hastened the end of the use of Concorde aircraft in 2003.