Category: Miscellaneous

The Glorious Details of the South Pole Rescue

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the Twin Otter Emergency Winter Flight to the South Pole, when it became clear that a rescue mission was needed to land at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in the dead of winter. Point of no return: 5 hrs. Despite extra tanks, Twin Otter doesn’t carry enough…

Read more… 15 Jul 16

Twin Otter Emergency Winter Flight to the South Pole

The Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station is not easy to reach. It’s located on Antartica’s ice sheet at an elevation of 2,835 metres (9,306 feet). Most of that elevation is the thickness of the ice sheet itself. The station drifts with the ice sheet about 10 metres (33 feet) every year. The temperature ranges between -13.6°C…

Read more… 17 Jun 16

Summary of Facts: Egypt Air flight 804

Let me start by saying that the first week after a catastrophe is always a hotbed of rumours. When an aircraft is lost at sea, it usually takes a few days to a week to find the wreckage and recover any information; however ever since Malaysia Airlines flight 370, MISSING AIRCRAFT!! is headline news, with…

Read more… 20 May 16

Staying Connected at 30,000 Feet

Today’s article is written by Matthew Levenson, who is interested in aircraft from a passenger point of view rather than the pilot’s. But I think this is a subject close to most of our hearts: staying connected at 30,000 feet! Over the past decade, the rollout of free Wi-Fi services in our towns and cities…

Read more… 5 Apr 16

Why Planes Crash now available in paperback!

So, it’s been a long time coming because I wanted to make sure that the book print quality was good and that there was enough content to make it worth the print costs. I’ve finally got it all organised. Yes, that’s right. I can finally offer you a book that you can hold in your…

Read more… 2 Dec 15

New Design!

A few months ago I saw some people talking about Fear of Landing on Reddit, which was pretty cool, except that one of them said “Yeah, but what’s up with the 1990s web design, wow.” I looked at my darling website, which actually was designed in 2006, thank-you-very-much, with a redesign in 2008, and I…

Read more… 30 Jul 15

Accident Reports

Fatal Crash of Blue Angel 6: Military Investigation Released

Yesterday, the United States Department of the Navy released its investigation into the crash of Blue Angel Number 6. The accident occurred on the 2nd of June 2016 during the…

British Airtours Flight 28M - The Components of a Disaster

When morning broke on the 22nd of August 1985, the crew and passengers of a charter flight to Corfu could have no idea that they were going to make aviation…

Demystifying

The 1% rule and air disaster avoidance

I asked my friend, Robert Dawson, to help me understand the numbers behind risk assessment and the 1% rule. Robert writes fantastic science fiction and poetry, however I contacted him…

Airplane Pens

This is a bit of a short post today to make up for all the heavy posts recently. Me, I’m enjoying the long weekend and a bit of sunshine… This…

History

Disaster at the Air Show

ONE OF THE MOST tragic accidents in recent history is hard to reach concrete conclusions about because there are no published investigation results and no final report to be read.…

Wrong Way Corrigan mistakes Ireland for California

The story of how Douglas Corrigan ended up in Ireland while aiming for California is one of my favourites. In fact, I feel sure that I’ve written about him before*.…

Fun Stuff

Cow Takes Down Helicopter

Apologies to those who saw this on Fear of Landing’s Facebook and Twitter accounts, but I know many people only read the blog and I didn’t want anyone to miss…

Fantastic Video of Russian Air Force Combat Aircraft

This is a fantastic video showing the Russian air force aircraft currently in use (well, at least the ones that it is OK for us to know about, right?). Brilliantly…