Category: Accident Analysis – Page 22
Land Like a Crow Part 1
The entire world seemed to be watching when LOT airlines flight LO16 landed wheels up at Warsaw Airport in 2011. I wrote about it at the time, impressed with the smooth landing: The captain of the flight, Tadeusz Wrona, was the subject of much admiration as a result. His last name means crow in Polish,…
Read more… 30 Mar 18
Operational Failures: Execuflight 1526 Part Two
On the 10th of November 2015, a BAe 125 operated by Execuflight crashed into an apartment building while on approach to Akron Fulton International Airport. The captain, the first officer and seven passengers died. I looked at the flight in Trouble in the Cockpit: Execuflight 1526 Part One. The key question, which we discussed in…
Read more… 16 Feb 18
Trouble in the Cockpit: Execuflight 1526 Part One
On the 10th of November 2015, Execuflight flight 1526 was a British Aerospace HS 127-700A chartered for a flight across Ohio from Dayton-Wright Brothers Airport in Dayton to Akron Fulton International Airport. The British Aerospace 125 is a twin-engine mid-size corporate jet, designed by de Havilland as a small business jet (under the much cooler…
Read more… 9 Feb 18
Steve Fossett Disappearance
It was the 3rd of September in 2007 at around 09:30 local time in California when a Bellanca 8KCAB-180 (Super Decathlon) registration N240R disappeared in the ‘Nevada Triangle’. The 63-year-old pilot was Steve Fossett, a famous aviator and sailor. He is still the holder of multiple world records, including the fastest east-to-west transcontinental record for…
Read more… 27 Oct 17
Have You Ever Flown a Barrel Roll at Night?
On the 14th of February in 2010, a private jet disappeared from radar in German airspace eleven minutes after taking off for a routine ferry flight from the Czech Republic to Sweden. I wrote a short piece about this accident a few years back but the accident report hadn’t been published yet. Now that I’ve…
Read more… 15 Sep 17
Experimental Jet Crashes in Mojave
On the 13th of May in 2016, a Seguin Quickie, registration N68TQ, crashed in Mojave, CA. If you don’t recognise the aircraft type, that’s because there’s only one in existence. Or was. The Seguin Quickie was an experimental amateur-built kit plane: a single-seater composite aircraft. It was designed and constructed for air racing by commercial…
Read more… 8 Sep 17
Accident Analysis
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…
Demystifying
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 Pilots, the Probes, and the AF447 Verdict
On the 21st of May 2026, the Paris Court of Appeal convicted Airbus and Air France of involuntary manslaughter for their roles in the crash of Air France flight 447,…
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
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…
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…
