Category: Accidents and Incidents – Page 53
83ft above the sea at night and no investigation?
I’m often asked about government cover-ups and the “real story” behind well-known commercial incidents. Generally, it’s easy to give an optimistic answer. Most investigations carried out by most of the accident investigation bureaus are top class: thorough and honest and with a detailed report which allows us, the outsiders, to check their work. This case,…
Read more… 25 Sep 15
Details of the Engine Fire at Las Vegas
On Tuesday there was an engine fire at McCarran International Airport which has made headline news in the US and the UK. A key reason that this incident is so incredibly interesting is because, despite the fire burning hot enough to melt windows on the aircraft, there were no serious injuries and no loss of…
Read more… 11 Sep 15
All Boozed Up and Ready to Fly
It was 05:17, just a few minutes past dawn, when the police saw the flight crew board the aircraft. The take-off time for the charter flight taking holiday makers from Oslo to the sunny island of Crete was 05:45. There were five crew members: two pilots and three cabin crew. Four of them were drunk.…
Read more… 21 Aug 15
Just a little slip: a tragedy of errors for G-EUOE
The AAIB have released their report on the incident involving Airbus A319-131 G-EUOE at London Heathrow Airport on 24 May 2013. This is one of those reports where I find I’m clenching my teeth as it becomes clear how much has gone wrong. This incident begins the night before on the 23rd of May. The…
Read more… 7 Aug 15
Straight-Talk about Malaysia Airlines flight 370 and the flaperon
In light of the news this week (which is great news for unravelling the mystery of what happened to Malaysia Airlines flight 370), I thought it might be useful to try to explain some of the issues being talked about in the press. I know there’s a lot of news coverage at the moment; still,…
Read more… 31 Jul 15
Why Planes Crash: Case Files 2002 is DONE!
I did it! It’s taken a lot longer than I expected, but the second book in the Why Planes Crash series is finally finished! I want to thank everyone on Fear of Landing for their support in this; it’s through this website that I discovered that my obsessions were shared with so many of you.…
Read more… 14 Jul 15
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…
