This story of a light aircraft crash in Northern Spain was one that I didn’t quite have space for in Why Planes Crash Case Files: 2003. The date was the 27th of June in 2003. The aircraft was a Socata TB-20 Trinidad. The pilot was German, 58 years old and an experienced private pilot whose…
Read more… 4 Nov 16
Last week, there was a frightening near-miss on the runway at Shanghai airport. Although there is no official report yet, the details are available on the Aviation Herald incident page. It was the 11th of October and the weather was clear with good visibility. China Eastern flight MU-5106, an Airbus A330-300, was a scheduled domestic…
Read more… 21 Oct 16
On the 16th of March, 1962, a Lockheed Super Constellation airliner disappeared over the Pacific. The Flying Tiger Line was the first scheduled cargo airline in the US. It was named after the Flying Tigers fighter unit, a World War II group of pilots from the US Army, Navy and Marine Corps whose shark-faced fighter…
Read more… 30 Sep 16
Yesterday, the United States Department of the Navy released its investigation into the crash of Blue Angel Number 6. The accident occurred on the 2nd of June 2016 during the U.S. Navy Flight Demonstration Team, The Blue Angels demonstration at the Great Tennessee Air show at Smyrna, Tennessee. The pilot, Captain Jeffery M. Kuss, USMC,…
Read more… 16 Sep 16
When morning broke on the 22nd of August 1985, the crew and passengers of a charter flight to Corfu could have no idea that they were going to make aviation history with one of the worst accidents in Britain. This accident remains in every text book as defining the issues for procedures on the ground…
Read more… 19 Aug 16
ONE OF THE MOST tragic accidents in recent history is hard to reach concrete conclusions about because there are no published investigation results and no final report to be read. The accident took place at Sknyliv Airport, near Lviv in the Ukraine, in July 2002. Fourteen years later, the local community has still not recovered.…
Read more… 5 Aug 16
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…
Bomber 139's Third Run: Downhill to Disaster
On the 6th of February 2023, a Boeing 737-3H4 Large Air Tanker crashed into a ridge line of 222 feet elevation in Fitzgerald River National Park in Western Australia. There…
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…
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.…
The Mystery of the Caged Tyres and the Porcupine Who Flew Home
This photograph was posted to r/shittyaskflying, a subreddit dedicated to asking silly questions and giving silly answers. In this case, the photograph is enough to make one wonder what’s going…
Songs About Failed Spacecraft and Space Disasters
This week, I’m handing over Fear of Landing to my friend Jack Keller who promised me a playlist of music relating to my interests. All of the titles except one…