The crash of a Boeing 767 yesterday was only the third fatal crash involving the model.
The wide-body, twin-engine jet entered commercial service in 1982. Boeing has delivered more than 762 of the aircraft to dozens of carriers around the world, turning it into a trans-Atlantic workhorse.
Yesterday the Cairo-bound EgyptAir aircraft crashed off the Massachusetts coast. The Coast Guard found one body and some wreckage within hours.
The Boeing 767 model has been involved in two previous crashes that caused fatalities.
On November 23rd, 1996, 125 of the 175 passengers and crew died when an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 767 crashed into the sea off the Comoros Islands. Fifty people survived the accident, which was caused by hijackers who refused to allow it to refuel.
And in May 1991, Lauda Air Flight NG004 vanished from radar 16 minutes after taking off from Bangkok and crashed into a jungle hilltop 120 miles away.
Although the 767 comes in several different versions, the Lauda Air jet, like its EgyptAir counterpart, was a 767-300ER, a model with extra fuel capacity giving it longer range. The aircraft holds 218 passengers in a typical threeclass configuration and has a range of about 7,000 miles.
Wreckage from the Lauda Air crash indicated one of the engine thrust reversers deployed in flight, sending it into an uncontrollable dive. Thrust reversers are designed to help an aircraft brake and should be impossible to deploy in midair.
After the crash, the US Federal Aviation Administration ordered airlines to install an extra thrust reverser locking system on a wide range of Boeing aircraft, although such orders are not binding on carriers based outside the US.
A Boeing spokesman said it was far too early to say what caused the EgyptAir crash.
"At this point, there is absolutely nothing known about the cause, but we'll help in any way we can," Boeing spokesman Mr Russ Young said.
He said the company had assembled a team of engineers and investigators that was ready to go to the crash scene.
The only other major accident involving a 767 occurred in 1993, when a TACA Airlines jet landing in Guatemala City ran off a wet runway and ploughed into several houses.
Although the aircraft was a total loss, none of the 216 people on board and no one on the ground was seriously injured.