Category: Accidents and Incidents – Page 61
Last Words Air France 447
Today, I have a chilling ATC transcript for you from Plane Crash Info.com. Plane Crash Info, run by Richard Kebabjian, is an excellent database of aviation incidents, including photographs, statistics and articles on unusual accidents. Last words is a heart-breaking series of cockpit voice recordings and transcripts from fatal crashes, forcing us to remember that…
Read more… 17 Jan 14
Memorial in the middle of the Desert: UTA Flight 772
There’s this viral set of photographs going around of the UTA Flight memorial. It’s a fascinating story and I think it is the most amazing modern memorial. It was originally featured in Google Sightseeing in 2009. Even by Saharan standards, the Ténéré region of northern Niger is pretty desolate: a vast sea of sand, broken…
Read more… 10 Jan 14
Live Footage of Accident from 1910
I’m travelling so just a quicky today. This silent film, 1910 Aeroplane Flight and Wreck shows M. Cody piloting an aeroplane that almost certainly shouldn’t be able to fly. It was filmed on 23 June of 1910, although it’s not known who by. The clip is particularly interesting because the camera follows the plane, which…
Read more… 3 Jan 14
Sequence of Events in the Cockpit on Asiana Flight 214
Last week, the NTSB held the Asiana Flight 214 Investigative Hearing. On the 6th of July 2013, Asiana Flight 214, a scheduled passenger flight from Incheon, South Korea to San Francisco, CA, crashed on final approach after striking the seawall a few hundred feet short of the runway. The investigation is continuing but a key…
Read more… 13 Dec 13
Giant 4241 Heavy, Confirm You Know Which Airport You Are At
Last week, international news headlines were filled with the headlines of a Boeing 747 that landed at the wrong airport. Meanwhile, pilots all over the world cringed at the thought of making that kind of mistake and ending up in the media spotlight. But of course the question on most people’s lips has been, how…
Read more… 22 Nov 13
Near Miss over Scotland
UK news headlines have highlighted a near miss over Scotland in June this year, when two Boeing 747s lost separation. In the UK, an aviation near miss is known as an airprox and the UK Airprox Board has just released a compendium of the airprox incidents assessed at their September 2013 meeting. I was immediately…
Read more… 25 Oct 13
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…
