Last week, I was struck by the difference in headlines: The BBC reported Heathrow Airport runways closed for emergency landing while a rather less professional journal chose the headline Plane on Fire Flying Over Central London.

Anyway, the AAIB have released a special bulletin regarding the Airbus A319 that had an engine fire departing from Heathrow on the 24th of May. The fan cowl doors from both engines detached on take-off, which punctured a fuel pipe on the right engine and damaged the aircraft.

AAIB Bulletin S3/2013

Following the event, photographs of the aircraft, taken prior to pushback, were provided to the AAIB. These photographs show the fan cowl doors unlatched on both engines.

The aircraft had undergone scheduled maintenance overnight. This required opening the fan cowl doors on both engines to check the Integrated Drive Generator (IDG) oil level.

Oops.

And speaking of oops…

Finnair forced to repaint A330 livery after embarrassing copyright violation ~ The Aviation Writer

Finnair has been promoting a brand new Airbus A330 livery, designed by European clothing and home furnishing retailer Marimekko… only to find out the design was copied from Ukrainian folk art.

The plagiarism was initially reported by Helsingin Sanomat newspaper, which noticed the similarities between Marimekko’s pattern and a 1963 painting by the late Ukrainian folk artist Maria Primachenko.

Some very red faces in Helsinki at the moment.

This video is old but shows some incredible low-level helicopter flying:

One of the commenters says:

Some facts for you that can be verified: a) the type of flying shown here is military type of flying, trained in the german HEERESFLIEGER since 1960s. b) The Pilot was at least 50 years old, when this was recorded. c) he still lives d) No (ZERO) casualties in the German Heeresflieger while doing low level flying in 50 years of training. e) Numerous world championships in helicopter acrobatics for these guys

It’s hard to believe that no one was hurt in this emergency landing straight into a house:

Small plane crashes into Herndon apartment as family sleeps – The Washington Post

Ventura said he sprang from his bed to find a surreal scene: A small plane had crash-landed in his living room with its nose resting on the floor next to the fireplace. A battery sat on a sectional couch, and a yawning hole in the ceiling opened to the night sky.

As Ventura stood in shock, he said the pilot and a passenger clambered out of the cockpit of the single-engine Cessna 177, and an awkward moment ensued.

“The pilot asked if we were okay,” Ventura said. “I told him that we were all good.”

I was entranced by this feature in io9 on aviation graveyards, featuring amazing photographs from all over the world:

The World’s Most Bizarre Aircraft Graveyards

Also, loving this video as a plane taxis past the abandoned aircraft at Pinal Airpark, Arizona:

I would love to get the chance to fly over these places for a better look…

And because looking at dead planes can be sad-making, here’s a video of the first A350 XWB, freshly painted in Airbus livery.

Finally, I saw today that Why Planes Crash is #9 on Amazon in the top rated books in aviation. Thank you so much for supporting my project, it’s incredibly motivating. I can’t wait to show you all the next one!