Daily Sun, Nigeria’s King of the Tabloids:
Please understand that Allaah sends trials upon people so as to distinguish between them, so that it will be known who will bear it with patience and the hope of reward from Allaah, and who will be filled with despair and will resent the decree of Allaah. So those who are patient will be rewarded with Paradise and those who despair will be punished with torment, grief and pain in this world, before the Hereafter.
The plane crash which you mentioned is of this nature.
The people on board were either committed Muslims, so this disaster is an expiation for their sins and will raise their status, as it is a kind of martyrdom (shahaadah) for which they will be rewarded, and their families will be rewarded if they bear their loss with patience; or they were kuffaar and evildoers who did not obey their Lord, so the accident was a punishment from Allaah and vengeance from Him.
Here.