Latest Posts  

Garuda Airbus A330 stuck in the mud

New

It was some time ago when I managed to get the Piper Saratoga so bogged down in the mud that my aircraft had to be towed out by four strong men and a landrover. I was attempting a short cut, in a rush to depart, and thought that I could save time by cutting across…

Read more… 3 Jul 20

Landing Gear Retracted: PIA flight PK8303

On the 22nd of May 2020, an Airbus A320-214 flying as Pakistan International Airline (PIA) flight 8303 crashed short of Jinnah International Airport in Karachi, killing all but two passengers on impact. The accident is being investigated by the Pakistan Aircraft Accident Investigation Board. The investigation is led by the AAIB president and includes their…

Read more… 26 Jun 20

Capital Airlines CFIT in 2004: No Probable Cause

On the 10th of July in 2004, a low-wing, twin-engine aircraft operated by Capital Airlines, Inc crashed into trees and terrain, killing both the pilot and the passenger. It took the NTSB three years to release their final report, which concluded that they were unable to determine a probable cause. This is one of those…

Read more… 19 Jun 20

Flightradar 24 and aircraft tracking

Flightradar24 (FR24) is a global flight tracking site which offers realtime information about flights by tracking ADS-B. ADS-B stands for automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast. This is a means for an aircraft to automatically transmit its identification and location, allowing other aircraft and aerodromes to know where they are. What’s great for us is that because it…

Read more… 12 Jun 20

Hard Landing Within Limits

In this simple incident, we can see how a trivial failure and a simple-but-wrong assumption has knock-on effects that could have easily led to the structural failure of an aircraft. On the 1st of December 2017, a night charter flight departed Basel Mulhouse Airport in Switzerland at 20:55 local time for a flight to Pristina…

Read more… 5 Jun 20

Beechcraft Baron final “flight”

New ride opens at Blackpool pic.twitter.com/LWwG95Gj6P — Andrew Hodgson (@Hoddy1982) May 2, 2020 My friend Rob sent me a link to this with a note that said simply, “I have questions.” Not everyone can see the video on the tweet, so here’s a high-res version of the video that the tweet is based on —…

Read more… 29 May 20

Accident Reports

Procedural Drift at Yeager Airport

In the early morning hours of the 5th of May 2017, Air Cargo Carriers flight 1260 crashed at Yeager Airport in Charleston, West Virginia. There were two souls on board,…

Lion Air flight 610 and the AOA Disagree alert

I wrote before that Lion Air’s Boeing 737 had a faulty AOA sensor which was replaced the day before Lion Air flight 610. The new sensor was out of alignment…

Demystifying

"N28V, I need your call sign, please."

This general aviation accident didn’t happen on the 27th of April 2017, although I think you’ll agree with me that it was a near thing. The aircraft, a 1964 Mooney…

Aviation Airspeed Guide

Just a quick one today but I really liked this guide to the airspeed indicator which was published to r/aviation. The thread has ended up in an interesting discussion about…

History

The Real “Bionic Man”

Some of you may have spotted the recent comments on Wingless Flight in the M2-F1 by aerospace journalist and author Nigel Macknight, who had written about NASA’s M2-F2 pilot Milt…

Flight 19: The Point of No Return

I was interviewed about Flight 19 for a documentary recently and although I’ve limited the details of the experience to supporters of my personal Patreon (for travel writing and essays),…

Fun Stuff

Toddler Overboard and other aviation videos

I’ve got quite a collection of interesting videos building up so it’s past time for me to share them! These are not all brand new but new to me and…

Top Ten Posts of 2019

Next week we’ll be starting on a detailed look at Lion Air flight 610 but first, to celebrate the end of 2019, I want to share the most popular posts…