Category: Accident Analysis – Page 5
Following the story of the Fokker F27
Last week I wrote about the Fokker F27 mk 500 Friendship that came off the runway at take-off at Bournemouth Airport. Rudy commented on his experience flying the F27 in the comments of that post. The F27 was still a very reliable workhorse when I flew it. In widespread use as a cargo aircraft, they…
Read more… 18 Apr 25
Pneumatic Pressure Required
The flight crew reported for duty at Bournemouth Airport at 3am on Friday the 7th of May 2004. They were flying a thirty-three-year-old Fokker F27 Mark 500, registered in the UK as G-CEXG, to the island of Jersey and back. The Fokker F27 Friendship was designed as a successor to the DC-3, which had been…
Read more… 11 Apr 25
Crosswind Landing Gone Wrong: TUI Boeing 737 at Leeds Bradford
Leeds Bradford Airport in England, perched on a windy hilltop, is known for its challenging conditions. But even by Leeds standards, the conditions on the 20th of October 2023 were rough, as Storm Babet battered the British Isles with high winds and heavy rain. The thirteen-year-old Boeing 737-8KS registered in the UK as G-TAWD started…
Read more… 7 Feb 25
Bankstown Belly Landing Follow-Up
Last year, I wrote about a Cessna 210 which suffered an engine failure while downwind at Bankstown Airport in New South Wales, Australia. I’ll quickly recap the controller and pilot interactions from the event which was the main information that we had. At the time, I wrote that the pilot and one passenger were on…
Read more… 24 Jan 25
Wings Over Dallas: How Poor Systems Led to Mid-Air Collision
On the 12th of November 2022, a Bell P-63F Kingcobra fighter flew into a Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress bomber during the Wings Over Dallas airshow. All six crew members in both aircraft, five in the Flying Fortress and one in the Kingcobra, were killed in the collision. I wrote about the background of the two…
Read more… 20 Dec 24
“Totally a visibility issue.”
On Sunday, the 27th of November 2022, a single-engine aircraft made national US news when it crashed through power lines in Gaithersburg, Maryland, coming to rest on a lattice tower. I wrote about the incident at the time as Mooney crashes into power lines but that piece was focused on the crash and the rescue.…
Read more… 6 Dec 24
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…
