Category: Accident Reports –  Page 15

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

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

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, the two crew members, who were both killed in the crash. The NTSB took over two years to release their final report. The aircraft was…

Read more… 15 May 20

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 by about 21°, one of the key factors leading to the uncommanded MCAS trim which caused the crash. Under normal circumstances, this would have been…

Read more… 24 Apr 20

Part 2: The Analysis of Southern Airways flight 932

This is a continuation from my post last week on the crash of Southern Airways flight 932. In that post, I stepped through the sequence of events which led to the crash of the charter flight to Huntington Tri-State airport in a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 which killed all 75 on board. The Chairman of the…

Read more… 27 Mar 20

Accident Reports

Any Landing You Can Float Away From: Successful Ditching in the Arctic

On the 29th of July 2024, a light aircraft encountered engine trouble off the coast of Greenland and was forced to ditch in the North Atlantic. The aircraft was a…

Bomber 139's Third Run: What the Investigation Found

In order to follow this analysis, you’ll need to have the details of the flight and the crash from last week’s article about the flight. When we last saw Bomber…

Demystifying

Another quick round of questions and answers

It’s time for another Questions and Answers session. I started this series a few years back, when a reader asked if there was a way to pose aviation questions outside…

Durga Puja Pandal Shows Air India Flight 171 Crash

The following video from a religious festival in West Bengal, India, has caught a lot of social media attention. It shows a detailed representation of an Air India Boeing Dreamliner…

History

Gladys Ingle Inflight Wheel Change: Emergency Action or Stunt?

This video of a mid-air wheel exchange goes viral once a year or so, but I never get tired of watching it. Last week, it showed up on Reddit and…

The Disappearance of the Hawaii Clipper May Not Be as Mysterious as Was Thought

This week, we have a guest post by J.B. Rivard who wrote an article for the American Aviation Historical Society (AAHS) and used one of my articles as a reference.…

Fun Stuff

Aviation Stories You Might Have Missed

I hope you all are having a wonderful holiday season. This week, I’ve put together a compilation of interesting items in the press that you might have missed while enjoying…

Nathan Pyle Strange Worlds

Thank you so much for all the kind words. I don’t quite have the wherewithal to respond to each of you individually but I very much appreciate all of you…