There’s been a lot of chatter about the Peruvian Boeing 737 which collapsed on landing a few days ago. Obviously there’s not a report yet, but I wanted to try to collect the information so far because three days after the incident. It’s still not clear to me what actually happened. (Also, I love the…
Read more… 31 Mar 17
I am moving this week so I have another guest post for you. There have been a few references on Fear of Landing about inflight entertainment and whether or not in-flight casinos are an obvious next step or a problem to be avoided at all costs. So I hope you will enjoy Dan Saymour’s article…
Read more… 17 Mar 17
PH-BFT is a Boeing 747-406(M) operated by KLM. It’s a 747 combi for mixed passenger and freight operations. The aircraft was travelling from Amsterdam to New York JFK, cruising at flight level 360 (36,000 feet). They were about 330 nautical miles (600 kilometres) north of St John’s in Newfoundland, Canada when the captain fell ill.…
Read more… 10 Mar 17
What do you get when you combine a popular airport for plane spotters with a stormy forecast and a crosswind on the runway? The perfect storm. On the 21st of February 2017, the Met Office issued yellow and amber warnings for wind, snow and rain as Storm Doris began to gather steam. On the night…
Read more… 3 Mar 17
Today is the 99th anniversary of Estonian independence. Sadly, that doesn’t mean 99 years of independence. The auspicious date seems like a good opportunity for a historical post covering the most famous aviation incident in Estonian territory: when the Finnish passenger plane Kaleva was shot down by Soviet bombers as it was departing Tallinn. Kaleva…
Read more… 24 Feb 17
On the 17th of October in 2013, an Italian Air Force aircraft departed Tallinn Airport (Estonia) for Rome Ciampino Airport. The Dassault Falcon 900 is a French-built corporate jet aircraft. It was flown by an experienced pilot who was rated as an instructor in the Italian Air Force. The aircraft departed Tallinn at 14:51 UTC…
Read more… 17 Feb 17
Why KLM Cut the Steering Cables on Two Perfectly Functional Boeing 737s
Last month, we looked at the night of 28th of November 2004 at Barcelona Airport. KLM 1673 ran off the runway at high speed, stopping just short of a canal.…
KLM 1673 Veers Off the Runway with Full Right Rudder
On the 28th of November 2004, a Boeing B737 ran off the runway at Barcelona Airport. The weather had been good at Barcelona that evening. The flight crew agreed to land…
How Important is Having a Sterile Cockpit?
This question was posted to r/flying by a private pilot who wanted to know: do airline pilots ever engage in small talk about irrelevant things during taxiing, run-up, takeoff, and…
Someone has to write the TAF
It turns out that there a person sitting there deciding what the weather is going to do. Which seems obvious, except that I had somehow never asked msyelf who “someone”…
The CIA's Shark Screen
Today we have a guest post from the CIA! In their archives, researching something completely different, I found the answer to a question I never thought to ask. I immediately…
The First Jet to Land on an Aircraft Carrier (Deliberately)
“The Vampire was the first jet to land on a moving aircraft carrier deliberately.” This quote from Airshow Luke, our MC at the Legacy of Liberty airshow, made me almost…
Bird Strikes, Balloon Landings and Falling in Love with a Boeing 777
The exciting news on Fear of Landing this week was a huge scare about critical vulnerabilities in PHP. PHP is widely used on the web, including in WordPress, which is…
Petrified, Petrified, Petrified
There’s been some interesting reporting in the UK media about a “near disaster” over Canary Wharf involving the captain having to intervene (the horror!) after air data systems failed on…