Latest Posts   –  Page 4

Engine Failure Before Take-Off

Last week, we looked at an accident in a business jet which ran off the runway during a failed take-off run. I tried to give you all of the information that the investigators would have had at the scene, although as Mendel pointed out, because I removed the date, I obscured the time of year,…

Read more… 30 Jul 21

Runway Excursion on Take-Off

This accident happened some time ago but it is new to me. A twin-engine business jet departing from Portland, Oregon, crashed shortly after take-off with four on board. The Aerospatiale SN-601 Corvette was developed and manufactured in the 1970s as a response to a government need for a compact twin turbofan engine. Only 40 Corvettes…

Read more… 23 Jul 21

Unruly Passengers Taken To Task

We’ve all heard the stories of passengers acting out on commercial flights, leading to the coining of the term “air rage“. This is generally described as a new phenomenon, related to entitlement issues of a newer generation, although the earliest case that I found referenced was in 1950, when a “barrel-chested” passenger attacked a cabin…

Read more… 16 Jul 21

Boeing 737 Ditches off the Coast of Hawaiian Island

On the 2nd of July 2021, a cargo aircraft ditched in the Pacific near the Hawaiian island of Oahu after experiencing trouble in both engines. The aircraft was a forty-six year old Boeing 737-275C(A) (where apparently the C stands for “cargo/pax Combi” and the A stands for Advanced, with improved range over the original 737-200),…

Read more… 9 Jul 21

Aeroperú Flight 603

On Tuesday, the 1st of October 1996, Aeroperú flight 603 departed Miami for a scheduled passenger flight to Santiago, Chile, and landed in Lima, Peru for a planned stop to refuel. The aircraft was a Boeing 757-200 with two flight crew and seven cabin crew. In the cabin were sixty-one passengers, mostly Chilean but also…

Read more… 2 Jul 21

An Icon of Aviation

I have a guest post this week by Nicholas Brown, the Campus President of Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology. The college has been rebuilding a replica of Little Stinker, the Pitts Special flown by Betty Skelton. I’ll let Nicholas tell you all about it but first I wanted to share this video from an…

Read more… 25 Jun 21

Accident Reports

Causal Factors of the Piper Malibu Crash near Guernsey

Sometimes it seems like these posts get longer every year that I keep doing this. This collection of details from the AAIB report that I left out of the Piper…

Piper Malibu Loss of Control Over the Channel

On the 21st of January 2019, a Piper Malibu crashed into the English Channel near the island of Guernsey, killing both the pilot and the passenger on impact. Technically, this…

Demystifying

Wings for Wildlife: Aviation at Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, founded in 1977, is a charity focused on the conservation, preservation and protection of wildlife and habitats in Kenya. Their well-written newsletters are always a joy…

Maintaining Focus in the Cockpit

This article by Key Dismukes, Grant Young and Robert Sumwait is based on their research at NASA to study the problem of crew preoccupation. They reviewed NTSB reports of accidents…

History

The Mount Erebus Disaster

On the 28th of November 1979, a sight-seeing flight to Antartica crashed into Mount Erebus, killing all 257 on board. The Mount Erebus Disaster, as it came to be known,…

The Last Known Whereabouts of the White Bird

The disappearance of L’Oiseau Blanc in 1927 is one of the enduring mysteries of aviation history. The pilots eventually achieved their goal of changing aviation history, but certainly not in…

Fun Stuff

Funniest Thing You've Heard On the Radio

I’ve been struggling this week and was just panicking that I would not have a post finished in time for you for today when I discovered that Reddit had saved…

A Little Bit of Everything

There’s so much great aviation writing and video out there and I’m always appreciative when people send me fun things; it seems a shame not to share them! So here’s…