Category: Accident Reports

A Lesson On Keeping The Aircraft in Trim

On the 28th of May 2019, a customer arrived at a flight school at Archerfield Airport, Queensland for their first flight experience. The aircraft that day was a Cessna 152, a two-person, single-engine aircraft popular for training as it has low operating and maintenance costs but, more importantly, it is a durable and forgiving aircraft…

Read more… 29 Jan 21

Explosive Decompression on the Ground

The Gulfstream G150, a twin-engine business jet, arrived at Kittilä airport in Lapland on a cold Tuesday afternoon on the 2nd of January 2018, carrying three crew and four passengers. It was snowing and the temperature was around -5°C (23°F). Normally the aircraft was kept in a hangar if available, however, this wasn’t possible at…

Read more… 4 Dec 20

I am the problem: PSA flight 1771

On the 7th of December in 1987, Pacific Southwest Airlines flight 1771 departed Los Angeles International for a scheduled passenger flight to San Francisco. There were five crew and thirty-eight passengers on board. The aircraft was a British Aerospace BAE-146-200, a four-engine airliner which was (and still is) popular with regional airlines like PSA for…

Read more… 13 Nov 20

The Cockpit and the Cabin: 2019 Incident at Stansted

We talk a lot about Cockpit Resource Management and the importance of the captain and the first officer acting as a team. A related issue which has had a lot less focus is the importance of communication between the cockpit and the cabin. On the first of March 2019, an Airbus A320-214 registration OE-LOA suffered…

Read more… 30 Oct 20

In the cabin of Southwest flight 1380

Last week, we looked at Southwest Airlines flight 1380 which suffered an engine failure while climbing to cruise altitude on the 17th of April 2018. A fragment from the engine broke a cabin window, leading to a rapid depressurisation event. The crew immediately descended and diverted to Philadelphia, landing safely seventeen minutes after the engine…

Read more… 25 Sep 20

In the cockpit of Southwest flight 1380

On the 17th of April in 2018, Southwest Airlines flight 1330 experienced an engine failure while climbing to cruise altitude. The aircraft was a Boeing 737-7H4 (registration N772SW) with two turbofan engines manufactured by CFM International. The CFM-7B24 engine has 24 fan blades installed on the fan disk. The flight departed normally from LaGuardia Airport…

Read more… 18 Sep 20

Accident Reports

Going Around: Bulgaria Air Charter flight 8115

It was 4am on the 16th of July 2018 when the Bulgaria Air Charter flight crew arrived at the airport, an hour before the scheduled 05:12 flight 8115 from Catania…

Arrow Air flight 1285: icing or explosion?

On the 12th of December 1985, a DC-8 Jetliner operating as Arrow Air flight 1285 crashed on departure from Gander, Canada. This was an international charter flight carrying US troops…

Demystifying

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…

Small Plane Gets Stoned

This photograph has been posted to aviation forums repeatedly, each time with a thread of pilots wondering what the hell could have happened to cause the light aircraft to be…

History

The History Listen

I was on the radio on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, in a show called The History Listen. They asked me to tell them about a famous story in Australian and…

The Last Flight of B121-120

The Beagle B.121 Pup is a British, single-engine, all-metal aircraft produced in the 1960s. British Executive and General Aviation Limited, who traded as BEAGLE, designed the Beagle B.121 Pup as…

Fun Stuff

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…

The History Listen

I was on the radio on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, in a show called The History Listen. They asked me to tell them about a famous story in Australian and…