Latest Posts – Page 50
Pratt & Whitney Contained Engine Failure
On the 20th of February 2021, a Boeing 777-200, flying as United Airlines flight UA328, suffered an engine failure shortly after take off from Denver International Airport for a scheduled domestic flight to Honolulu, Hawaii. There were 229 passengers and ten crew on board. United Airlines was the launch customer for the Boeing 777 when…
Read more… 26 Feb 21
The Tetris Challenge
When the Kantonspolizei Zürich (the police department of the Swiss canton of Zurich) posted a photograph on Facebook showing the contents of a standard patrol car, they had no idea what they were unleashing. They used a technique called knolling: a term coined in the 1980s by Andrew Kromelow, a janitor at a furniture making…
Read more… 19 Feb 21
Hard Landing at Garowe
On the 2nd of December 2020, a Boeing 737-500 flying as Air Djibouti flight IV-2065 departed Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland, to Garowe, the capital of Puntland (both generally considered to be in Somalia). I have taken the details from the Aircraft Accident Investigation Preliminary Report as hosted on AVHerald. Air Djibouti, previously known as…
Read more… 12 Feb 21
How Many Successful Ditchings of Commercial Airliners?
When I was learning to fly, I remember someone in the pilots’ bar insisting that all that talk about life jackets under your seat was a waste of time; if your aircraft is going down over water, you were done for. This wasn’t just idle talk. In 1999, Slate’s article In The Event of a…
Read more… 5 Feb 21
A Lesson On Keeping The Aircraft in Trim
On the 28th of May 2019, a customer arrived at a flight school at Archerfield Airport, Queensland for their first flight experience. The aircraft that day was a Cessna 152, a two-person, single-engine aircraft popular for training as it has low operating and maintenance costs but, more importantly, it is a durable and forgiving aircraft…
Read more… 29 Jan 21
The History Listen
I was on the radio on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, in a show called The History Listen. They asked me to tell them about a famous story in Australian and aviation history, when Ivan Smirnov crashlanded on the coast of northwest Australia, losing a cigar box of diamonds in the process. The recording was done…
Read more… 22 Jan 21
Accident Analysis
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…
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
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…
