Category: Accident Analysis – Page 2
Ferry Tank Failure: Successful SR22 Ditching in the Pacific
In 2015, I shared a video of an SR22 whose pilot successfully deployed his Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS) off of the coast of Maui, Hawai’i. I wrote at the time that I would update once the final report came out. I am rather behind on my todo list, I’m afraid. The Cirrus SR22 is at…
Read more… 24 Apr 26
The Man in the Right Seat at Prestwick
On the 23rd of April 2024, a Piper Archer II crashed in South Ayrshire, Scotland, after losing power. There were two on board. Both suffered serious injuries and the light aircraft, a 48-year old PA-28 registered in the UK as G-BVNS, will never fly again. The AAIB report makes a clear case for carburettor icing…
Read more… 20 Mar 26
TNflygirl and the Beech Debonair
On the 7th of December 2023, a Beech 35-C33 Debonair crashed into terrain. The private pilot and the passenger, the pilot’s father, were both killed on impact. The private flight departed Knoxville Downtown Island Airport for a 430-nautical-mile flight to Saline County Regional Airport in Arkansas to pick up some avionics equipment. It was a…
Read more… 20 Feb 26
At All Costs
On the 11th of December 2024, the passenger in the right seat of a 1973 Grumman AA-5 was recording a video as they approached Pearland Regional Airport in Texas. The passenger shared later how things started to go wrong. “First the headsets went out, then the radio, then the avionics,” they wrote. “We knew we…
Read more… 13 Feb 26
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 Piper Malibu (PA-46-310P), registered in Germany as D-EOSE, one of the earliest pressurised aircraft available to the general aviation market. Two pilots were on board,…
Read more… 17 Jan 26
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 139, they had just flown into a ridge and subsequently crashed on the high ground. Amazingly, the flight crew were able to walk out of…
Read more… 14 Nov 25
Accident Analysis
The Anatomy of an A350–CRJ Collision at Atlanta
On the 10th of September 2024, an Airbus A350 took the tail off of a Bombardier CRJ at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Georgia, USA. Delta Air Lines flight 295…
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.…
Demystifying
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”…
History
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…
Fun Stuff
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…
