Category: Accidents and Incidents – Page 29
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
Crash on Final Approach: Pakistan International Airlines flight 8303
Today (22 May 20202) an Airbus A320-200 operating as domestic flight PK 8303 from Lahore to Karachi crashed on final approach at Karachi, Pakistan. Current reports are that there were between 90 and 99 passengers on board and eight crew. It is not yet known if there are any survivors. The flight departed Lahore at…
Read more… 22 May 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
Mooney: Engine Failure on Take-Off
I was looking for something else entirely when I found the docket for this case, a Mooney crash in 2004. The NTSB report is only six pages and most of that is the standard form and bad pagination. I wouldn’t normally bother with a crash this simple but I found it intriguing how the docket…
Read more… 10 Apr 20
“N28V, I need your call sign, please.”
This general aviation accident didn’t happen on the 27th of April 2017. The aircraft, a 1964 Mooney M20E registration N7828V, was at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport at Broomfield, Colorado; it’s still commonly referred to as Jeffco Airport (short for Jefferson County) although it changed its name in 2006. Jeffco is a large airport with an…
Read more… 3 Apr 20
Accident Reports
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…
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…
Demystifying
Meowing on Guard (an attempt at an explanation)
Last week a video went viral and it’s been fun to see the mainstream media coverage try to cover two pilots who were heard making animal noises on the radio. …
Trump Threatens to Ground Canadian Aircraft Over Gulfstream Certification
The US President, Donald Trump, posted the following to Truth Social last night. Based on the fact that Canada has wrongfully, illegally, and steadfastly refused to certify the Gulfstream 500,…
History
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…
Four Point Two Stars Where You Only Stop If You Have To
I always look up airports when I’m writing about them, partly out of habit and partly because I’m afraid I’ll miss an important detail. When I was writing Any Landing…
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…
