Well, 2024 sure has arrived with a bang. It’s a little too soon to draw firm conclusions about the MAX 9 incident, but let’s see what we’ve got so far. On the 5th of January, a Boeing 737-900 MAX registered in the US as N704AL was operating Alaska Airlines flight 1282, a scheduled passenger flight…
Read more… 12 Jan 24
On the 2nd of January 2024 at 17:47 local time (08:47 GMT), an Airbus A350 collided with a de Havilland Canada DHC-8 Q300 (Dash 8) at Haneda International Airport in Tokyo. There are still many questions, but let’s put together what we know so far. Japan Airlines flight 516 departed Shin-Chitose airport, which serves the…
Read more… 5 Jan 24
It seems crazy to me that 2023 is already almost over! It’s been a year of change and, I guess, renewal, although I feel like I’ve been dragged kicking and screaming all the way. Fear of Landing continues to be a joy: I learn so much from writing for you and I love the community…
Read more… 29 Dec 23
It’s now traditional that I take Christmas and New Year’s off but it’s also a good excuse to put you to work instead. Recently I found myself considering these two reports and I’m wondering if anyone here might be able to shed some light on the issues. First of all, this is trivial but I…
Read more… 22 Dec 23
An abridged video of this landing was recently posted on Reddit. The flight took place in July 2021 and the video footage went viral in the weeks that followed. The aircraft lands safely, but it’s quite a textbook example of bad airmanship. The popular version of the video is a thirty-second excerpt where it can…
Read more… 15 Dec 23
On the 27th of July 2018, an experienced pilot departed with ten parachutists on board for a routine drop mission. It was the pilot’s fourth flight of the day in the Pilatus PC-6 Porter, a single-engine aircraft popular with parachuting and skydiving operations for its short take-off and landing capabilities and low maintenance requirements. The…
Read more… 8 Dec 23
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…
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”…
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…
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…