It’s been 15 years since the famous ValuJet crashed into the Everglades, a tragic accident that did much to focus our views on cost-savings and in-flight safety. There’s been a lot of discussion of the flight, including a National Geographic Seconds From Disaster episode. On the 11th of May in 1996, ValuJet Flight 592 disappeared.…
Read more… 13 May 11
On the 23rd of July 1983, Air Canada Flight 143 ran out of fuel at FL410 – 26,000 feet halfway through a 2,829 kilometre (1,768 mile) flight from Montreal to Edmonton. The Boeing 767-200 carrying 61 passengers managed to glide to safety to the Gimli Industrial Park Airport in Manitoba, a Canadian prairie province. What…
Read more… 23 Jul 10
Last week, Aviatrix linked to a gallery of photographs in in the Berliner Morgenpost of an emergency landing. You can see all the photographs at full size at Rosinenbomber muss notlanden – Berlin Aktuell – Berliner Morgenpost. The initial photographs in the set were taken by Frank Wandrei and Stefan Schurwanz who were taking photographs…
Read more… 9 Jul 10
The other day, Paul Tocknell from Ask a CFI.com made a throw-away comment on Twitter: Just learned about the D.B. Cooper story. Crazy. As I am easily distracted, I wandered off to find out who D.B. Cooper was and spent the rest of the day reading about the only unsolved hijacking case in the US.…
Read more… 31 Jul 09
The Cessna 185 Skywagon is a high wing, single engine aircraft: basically a Cessna 180 with six seats, a strengthened fuselage and a slightly more powerful engine. It’s a popular…
On the 4th of June 2022, a Bell 407 GXP helicopter crashed in a field near Fairfield, New Jersey. I wrote about it at the time. The final report and…
My friend Maria at Daedalean wrote this article about how they are using AI to help pilots detect gliders. I thought it was fascinating and Daedalean gave me permission to…
On the 5th of January 2024, Alaska Airlines flight 1282 had just taken off when it lost a door plug, leaving a gaping hole on the left side of row…
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…
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.…
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…
Long-term readings of Fear of Landing know that my favourite aerobatics show of all time is Kyle Franklin’s Ben Whabnoski Comedy act. Just in case some of you haven’t seen…