Latest Posts   –  Page 8

Landing Gear Retracted: PIA flight PK8303

On the 22nd of May 2020, an Airbus A320-214 flying as Pakistan International Airline (PIA) flight 8303 crashed short of Jinnah International Airport in Karachi, killing all but two passengers on impact. The accident is being investigated by the Pakistan Aircraft Accident Investigation Board. The investigation is led by the AAIB president and includes their…

Read more… 26 Jun 20

Capital Airlines CFIT in 2004: No Probable Cause

On the 10th of July in 2004, a low-wing, twin-engine aircraft operated by Capital Airlines, Inc crashed into trees and terrain, killing both the pilot and the passenger. It took the NTSB three years to release their final report, which concluded that they were unable to determine a probable cause. This is one of those…

Read more… 19 Jun 20

Flightradar 24 and aircraft tracking

Flightradar24 (FR24) is a global flight tracking site which offers realtime information about flights by tracking ADS-B. ADS-B stands for automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast. This is a means for an aircraft to automatically transmit its identification and location, allowing other aircraft and aerodromes to know where they are. What’s great for us is that because it…

Read more… 12 Jun 20

Hard Landing Within Limits

In this simple incident, we can see how a trivial failure and a simple-but-wrong assumption has knock-on effects that could have easily led to the structural failure of an aircraft. On the 1st of December 2017, a night charter flight departed Basel Mulhouse Airport in Switzerland at 20:55 local time for a flight to Pristina…

Read more… 5 Jun 20

Beechcraft Baron final “flight”

New ride opens at Blackpool pic.twitter.com/LWwG95Gj6P — Andrew Hodgson (@Hoddy1982) May 2, 2020 My friend Rob sent me a link to this with a note that said simply, “I have questions.” Not everyone can see the video on the tweet, so here’s a high-res version of the video that the tweet is based on —…

Read more… 29 May 20

Crash on Final Approach: Pakistan International Airlines flight 8303

Today (22 May 20202) an Airbus A320-200 operating as domestic flight PK 8303 from Lahore to Karachi crashed on final approach at Karachi, Pakistan. Current reports are that there were between 90 and 99 passengers on board and eight crew. It is not yet known if there are any survivors. The flight departed Lahore at…

Read more… 22 May 20

Accident Reports

The Weight and Balance of Air Midwest 5481

Air Midwest, headquartered in Wichita, Kansas, was originally certified as an air carrier by the FAA in 1965. The airline originally consisted of a single Cessna 206, which transported human…

Lion Air flight 610 : The Previous Flight

We have explored the aircraft registered as PK-LQP in quite some detail, looking at the sequence of events leading up to the crash of Lion Air flight 610. The Maintenance…

Demystifying

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…

Small Plane Gets Stoned

This photograph has been posted to aviation forums repeatedly, each time with a thread of pilots wondering what the hell could have happened to cause the light aircraft to be…

History

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…

The Last Flight of B121-120

The Beagle B.121 Pup is a British, single-engine, all-metal aircraft produced in the 1960s. British Executive and General Aviation Limited, who traded as BEAGLE, designed the Beagle B.121 Pup as…

Fun Stuff

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…

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…