Category: Accidents and Incidents –  Page 55

Do You Listen to ATC if They Tell You the Weather Ahead is Bad?

One of my pleasures on a Friday morning is to read the posts in Professional Pilots Rumour Network (known as PPRuNe for short) and this morning was no exception. I was intrigued by a post by a Scottish controller asking a question of the Private Flying forum. I recognised the name as a regular poster;…

Read more… 15 Jun 12

“A Unique Occurrence” – Turning an Incident into a Crisis

In the evening of 6 June 2010 a Boeing 737-4B6 of Royal Air Maroc was en route from Amsterdam Schiphol Airport to its destination of Nador International Airport in Morocco. Flight AT-685 had 156 passengers and four crew members on board. The captain was Pilot Flying, first officer was Pilot Monitoring. Timestamps and actions are…

Read more… 8 Jun 12

Facts and Photographs from Superjet Crash

A Sukhoi Superjet 100 crashed in Indonesia last Wednesday. As always, there’s been a lot of confusing and conflicting reports in the media, so here is my attempt to document the factual aspects of this terrible accident. The

Read more… 11 May 12

JetBlue Captain Break Down

The headlines have been full of the story of the Captain of a JetBlue flight who panicked on board and was locked out of the cockpit. In the interests of not arguing with everyone I meet, here is a run-down of what happened, unembellished by media excitements. Let’s get this out of the way first:…

Read more… 30 Mar 12

Continental Appeal Involuntary Manslaughter Conviction

In 2010, Continental Airlines was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for the Air France Flight 4590 disaster in Paris a decade earlier. Continental called the judgement “absurd” and vowed to appeal. That appeal has now started in Versaille this month. The crash, in July 2000, is described as “the beginning of the end” of Concorde’s commercial…

Read more… 16 Mar 12

Don’t Land With Your Gear Up

If you’ve flown a retractable, you’ve had it drummed into you: put the undercarriage down, check you put the undercarriage down and then check it once on short final. I came close, once. I was doing a circuit to land at North Weald. I wanted to get around quickly and took a decision not to…

Read more… 9 Mar 12

Accident Reports

The Fenestron Factor: Cabri G2 Crash in Gruyéres

The Swiss Transportation Safety Investigation Board (STSB) has released the final report for the Cabri G2 light helicopter crash in Gruyères, Switzerland in 2022. I wrote about it at the…

Cessna 172M forced landing after go-around in New South Wales

On the 15th of October 2023, a private pilot rented a Cessna 172M from Air Gold Coast for a private flight from Gold Coast Airport, Queensland, to Murwilumbah, New South…

Demystifying

How to tell an F-16 Fighting Falcon from a Eurofighter Typhoon

There are a number of reasons why you might need to quickly point out the differences between a General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon and a Eurofighter EF2000 Typhoon. You might…

Extreme Turbulence in Singapore Airlines flight 321

A few days ago (21st of May 2024), Singapore Airlines flight SQ321 encountered heavy turbulence on a passenger flight from London-Heathrow to Singapore. There were 229 on board, including eighteen…

History

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.…

Fun Stuff

Terminally Early: The Berlin Viewing Platform

Mistakes were made. All of them were mine. Before I left for Dresden, I planned out my full itinerary. Berlin is a much busier airport than Tallinn, so I needed…

A Few Good Stories

I’m in Dresden at the moment and I’m afraid I haven’t had a free moment to write you a new article. Luckily, lots of other people are on the internet…