Latest Posts – Page 119
Special Bulletin: Fatal Helicopter Crash over London
The AAIB has released a special bulletin regarding their field investigation of the helicopter which crashed into a crane at St George Wharf, Vauxhall, London on the 16th of January. The accident killed the pilot and a pedestrian. Additional people on the ground suffered serious injuries. The special bulletin does not include any analysis. They’ve…
Read more… 1 Mar 13
Controlled Flight into Terrain
Crossair Flight 3597 was an AVRO 146-RJ100, a regional airliner manufactured in the UK by British Aerospace. This aircraft type is popular at small, city-based airports because it is very quiet. Flight 3597 was a scheduled flight from Berlin-Tegel in Germany to Zurich in Switzerland. On the 24th of November in 2001, 28 passengers, 3…
Read more… 22 Feb 13
Horseplay in a Lockheed C-141 Starlifter
The Lockheed C-141 Starlifter is a strategic airlifter: a cargo aircraft specifically used to transport personnel or materials over long distances. This military aircraft has appeared in every US conflict from Vietnam to Afghanistan. It’s a big, well-stacked, beautiful plane built for comfort, not speed. (A lot like me, actually!) So I was excited to…
Read more… 15 Feb 13
Instruments and Visuals
Flying with non-pilots always brings up interesting questions. Tony isn’t all that interested in planes; however he was quick to notice after only a few flights that there was some important difference between my licence and Cliff’s. He’s right: Cliff is instrument rated and I am not, I can only fly in visual conditions. Cliff’s…
Read more… 8 Feb 13
5 Things About the Dreamliner That I Didn’t Know
1) The Dreamliner’s noise reduction tech is the results of decades of NASA research The Dreamliner has chevrons – serrated edges on the engine nacelles – in order to reduce the noise. Passengers on the plane before it was grounded say that it is quite noticeably quieter but I hadn’t understood the background. “Evolution from…
Read more… 1 Feb 13
Close Calls
This week, I want to share with you a collection of close calls (each with a happy ending) collected from around the Internet. The FAA are investigating this video of a stunt aircraft coming dangerously close to people on the ground. A commenter who claims to have been on site when the video was filmed…
Read more… 25 Jan 13
Accident Analysis
The Anatomy of an A350–CRJ Collision at Atlanta
On the 10th of September 2024, an Airbus A350 took the tail off of a Bombardier CRJ at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Georgia, USA. Delta Air Lines flight 295…
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.…
Demystifying
How Important is Having a Sterile Cockpit?
This question was posted to r/flying by a private pilot who wanted to know: do airline pilots ever engage in small talk about irrelevant things during taxiing, run-up, takeoff, and…
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”…
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
Bird Strikes, Balloon Landings and Falling in Love with a Boeing 777
The exciting news on Fear of Landing this week was a huge scare about critical vulnerabilities in PHP. PHP is widely used on the web, including in WordPress, which is…
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…
