Latest Posts   –  Page 3

Ever Left The Parking Brake On?

On the 22nd of December 2017, BMI Regional flight 1822, an Embraer ERJ-145EP (G-CKAG), was a scheduled flight from Frankfurt/Main in Germany to Bristol Airport in England. There were 22 passengers and three crew on board. As the aircraft came in to land on Runway 27, it skidded off the runway and came to a…

Read more… 18 Jan 19

Amazing Alpine Rescue

On the 2nd of January, a group of experienced skiers were at the Anterne pass, in the Giffre massif mountain range in the Haute-Savoie region of the Alps in eastern France. Bruno, a 19-year-old experienced skier, injured his knee on the slope of a steep mountain above cloud level, at 7,400 feet. Nicolas Derely, who…

Read more… 11 Jan 19

The Christmas Miracle – Part Two

I try to make these posts as stand-alone as possible but this time I just couldn’t do it. In order to make sense of this post, you need to read Part One of the Christmas Miracle here. So when we left off, the aircraft had been in the air for under a minute and the…

Read more… 4 Jan 19

A Christmas Miracle

I am not a fan of “miracles” which dismiss the safety culture, training and skill that airline crew bring to a situation; however, in the case of the Miraklet i Gottröra, it has to be said that pilot skill was supported by a large helping of good fortune which led to this amazing happy-ending crash…

Read more… 28 Dec 18

Drone Disables Gatwick

It started on Wednesday evening, around 9pm. Two drones were initially reported flying around Gatwick airport and then directly into the departure and approach areas. Officials responded swiftly, prioritising the safety of the flights by shutting down the airport. Outbound flights were delayed and inbound flights were diverted to other airports, with some flights having…

Read more… 21 Dec 18

Multiple Bird Strikes at Mwanza Airport

Let me warn you up front, the photographs below are not for the easily-made-queasy and bird lovers should probably look away now. On the 9th of December 2018, Precision Air flight 722 suffered multiple bird strikes while on final approach to Mwanza Airport in Tanzania. Precision Air is a Tanzanian airline, established in 1993 as…

Read more… 14 Dec 18

Accident Reports

What happened on Ethiopian flight 302: a breakdown of the preliminary report

Yesterday, the 4th of April, the Ethiopian Accident Investigation Bureau investigating the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 released the Preliminary Report (local version stored at bottom of this post).…

The Reckless Final Approach of US Bangla Flight 211

The crash of US Bangla flight 211 made international headlines when it occurred on the 12th of March 2018; however, it wasn’t until a month ago that the true sequence…

Demystifying

What Is Going On With The Boeing 737 Max 8?

The news is dominated right now with the grounding of the Boeing 737 Max 8 after a second fatal crash of a passenger jet which could be related to the…

Thirty Years Since Air France Flight 296

Thirty years ago, on the 26th of June 1988, a brand new Airbus A320 crashed during a demonstration of its fly-by-wire capabilities, killing three passengers and demolishing the plane as…

History

Building a B-29 Piece by Piece

I’m in Austria this week, giving a presentation about the representation of old women in science fiction. So it seemed only right to celebrate a woman in aviation who might…

The Odd Story of Richard Floyd McCoy Jr

I’ve been working hard on volume two of Without a Trace and, of course, I can’t resist a chapter on Dan Cooper, who successfully hijacked a Northwest Orient aircraft and…

Fun Stuff

For your amusement: weird and interesting NOTAMS

I was browsing around looking for interesting news when I saw that Reddit user justachamelion had posted a great question for /r/AskReddit: Pilots of Reddit, what are the weirdest or…

In case you were wondering what to get me for Christmas

There are lots of private jets up for sale but this one is special… It is a 1962 Lockheed JetStar 1329. The JetStar was a private project at Lockheed, originally…