Latest Posts
Former 737 MAX Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for Fraud
Yesterday, a federal grand jury indicted Boeing’s former Chief Technical Pilot for fraud, specifically accusing him of deceiving the FAA’s Aircraft Evaluation Group during their evaluation and certification of the 737 MAX and of scheming to defraud Boeing’s US-based airline customers to obtain “tens of millions of dollars” for Boeing. “Forkner allegedly abused his position…
Read more… 15 Oct 21
Pilatus PC-12 crash after take-off from Milan
On the 3rd of October 2021, a Pilatus PC-12 registration YR-PDV crashed shortly after taking off from Milan Linate Airport. The Pilatus PC-12 is a single-engine turboprop designed and manufactured by Pilatus Aircraft in Switzerland. It is a popular aircraft for corporate transport (bizprop?) and short regional flights. In this instance, it was a private…
Read more… 8 Oct 21
Lion Air flight 610: The Final Minutes
Last week, we started the sequence of events that happened inside the cockpit of Lion Air flight 610. The primary resource for this sequence of events is the final report released by the Komite Nasional Keselamatan Transportasi (KNKT). We left off with the cockpit still blaring with alarms and alerts. The Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System…
Read more… 1 Oct 21
Lion Air flight 610: In the Cockpit
On the 29th of October 2018, Lion Air flight 610, a Boeing 737-8 (MAX) crashed at Tanjung Karawang, West Java after departing from Jakarta. This crash was the first public sign that there was something wrong with the Boeing 737-MAX; the initial domino in a cascading sequence of events that uncovered an unbelievable quagmire of…
Read more… 24 Sep 21
Maintaining Focus in the Cockpit
This article by Key Dismukes, Grant Young and Robert Sumwait is based on their research at NASA to study the problem of crew preoccupation. They reviewed NTSB reports of accidents attributed to crew error and concluded that nearly half of them involved lapses of attention associated with interruptions, distractions, or preoccupation with one task to…
Read more… 17 Sep 21
Crash at Pensacola: “I wasn’t ridiculously low”
On Tuesday the 13th of August 2019, a Cessna 172 Skyhawk, registration N84287 crashed into a sand bar on the Escambia River near Jay, Florida, near the Alabama border. The pilot held both commercial pilot and flight instructor certificates with over 1,000 hours flight time, 798 hours in the aircraft make and model. The aircraft…
Read more… 10 Sep 21
Accident Reports
Dreamliner Pre-flight Maintenance
On Wednesday, the 16th of June, British Airways flight 881 from Moscow arrived at Heathrow airport. The aircraft was registration G-ZBJB, a Boeing 787-8 which had been converted from a…
Engine Failure Before Take-Off
Last week, we looked at an accident in a business jet which ran off the runway during a failed take-off run. I tried to give you all of the information…
Demystifying
Maintaining the Stores
We don’t often talk about parked aircraft because it is not very common for them to be involved in crashes. However, one of the side-effects of these pandemic times is…
How Many Successful Ditchings of Commercial Airliners?
When I was learning to fly, I remember someone in the pilots’ bar insisting that all that talk about life jackets under your seat was a waste of time; if…
History
The Mount Erebus Disaster
On the 28th of November 1979, a sight-seeing flight to Antartica crashed into Mount Erebus, killing all 257 on board. The Mount Erebus Disaster, as it came to be known,…
An Icon of Aviation
I have a guest post this week by Nicholas Brown, the Campus President of Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology. The college has been rebuilding a replica of Little Stinker,…
Fun Stuff
A Little Bit of Everything
There’s so much great aviation writing and video out there and I’m always appreciative when people send me fun things; it seems a shame not to share them! So here’s…
The Tetris Challenge
When the Kantonspolizei Zürich (the police department of the Swiss canton of Zurich) posted a photograph on Facebook showing the contents of a standard patrol car, they had no idea…
@FearofLanding
Rudy Jakma on Former 737 MAX Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for FraudSylvia already said it: Colin and Mendel added some very helpful information. And it is revealing to read about the…
Mendel on Former 737 MAX Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for FraudActually, this is not the first time the MCAS deception has been prosecuted. From a Department of Justice press release,…
ColinTD on Former 737 MAX Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for FraudAgree. It looks like a terrible, seemingly unethical, business decision (avoiding short term delays vs risk of massive reputation damage,…
Nancy WRIGLEY James on Former 737 MAX Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for FraudThanks, Sylvia. I got it now. Your depth of research is amazing. :) 
Mike Scirocco on Former 737 MAX Chief Technical Pilot Indicted for FraudAgreed, well said.