This blog is intended to inform people about new,unusual and historic airplane accidents and incidents in an educational way and by no means it try's to promote fear of flying or any other distress or whatsoever to the reader.Information is gathered from many sources and so i will try to be as accurate as possilble for the safe information of my readers.Enjoy and learn!
Flydubai flight 981 is one of the latest major accidents in 2016 that will probably point to a decades long problem in aviation.As it is way too early to even make assumptions as to what brought down this state of the art airplane, there are some strong indications there was strong negligence and bad decision making from the part of the pilots. One of the first indications is that the pilots were holding for two hours waiting for a windows of good weather to land at the Rostov-on-Don Airport in Russia which never came, taking into consideration that another flight tried for 3 times unsuccessfully to land in this airport and then diverted! As the plane made its second approach it initiated a go-around procedure which in simple terms means the pilots after breaking from the clouds they couldn't see the airport and had to abandon the approach and try again!after this attempt though it seems that the plane entered a low altitude stall which was as seen from the multiple videos unrecoverable at that point.Another factor that probably contributed to this accident was that the crew was fatigued from working too many hours per week (again all these are personal assumptions and opinions and do not reflect at all the real reason of this accident,for this we'll have to wait a few months for the official report).
If the assumptions i made above as per the reason of this accident are true we see a dangerous pattern of accidents where pilots simply can't handle basic flying skills and procedures such as how to recover from a stall or understand the limitations of the technology and automation of the cockpit. A few recent examples are Air France Flight 447, Air Asia flight 8501,Asiana flight 214.In all of these flights we see the dangerous trend of how bad pilots react to a simple problem such as a high altitude stall or loss of an airplane system which shouldn't cause an accident in any other situation but the pilots of those specific flights seemed to be overwhelmed by the unfolding situation and simply reacted badly leading to the loss of the plane crew and passengers.
Automation plays a major role in today's aviation world but when things start to fail in the cockpit then we see the real situation, which is that flight crew is unable to respond to basic flying skills which are taught from the beginning of their flying career!
Hi,
I know it is being while since i have posted anything at all but it is actually a nice feeling cause it means not a lot of crashes,haha kidding.Truth is that the last 2 years even though there is great economic recession the aviation industry is strangely at its safest rates for this decade,at least that is what the statistics show considering the number of crashes and fatalities of big airliners.Anyways because i have a lot of work to do in real life those days and this is a side project i don't have time to improve this site more and because it is a side project and not my job(yes i still do it for free :) no annoying ads,pop ups etc.) the pace is slow by just posting significant air crashes and letting the small ones slip by.
I have created a Facebook page quite some time ago and maybe we can continue discussing there aviation matters and more and also about any ideas you guys have about how can i improve this blog by adding more content,buttons,options etc. the link is https://www.facebook.com/pages/aviationaccidents1blogspotcom/482208161875253
you can like and star talking with other readers of the blog.Lets meet up :)
The pilots aboard the Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 that crashed in San Francisco relied on an auto-throttle system to maintain airspeed and did not realise the plane was flying too slowly until it was just 200 feet (60 metres) above the ground, the head of the US National Transportation Safety Board said on Tuesday.
In her third detailed briefing on Saturday's crash that killed two Chinese passengers and injured more than 180 others, NTSB Chairwoman Deborah Hersman also said two flight attendants were ejected from the plane after its tail hit a seawall in front of the runway and was torn off. Both were found injured but alive on the side of the runway.
Hersman said many questions remained about the incident. The South Korean airline's flight crew members were not tested for drugs or alcohol after the crash, a requirement for pilots of US-based carriers involved in accidents, she said.
The accounts given to investigators by the pilots, as relayed by Hersman, confirmed information from the plane's flight data recorder that showed the plane was flying 25 percent below its target airspeed as it came in for landing.
While she has declined to speculate on the cause of the crash, much of the information released by the NTSB suggests pilot error as a main focus of the investigation.
The pilot in charge of landing the plane on Saturday was in training on the 777 and was roughly halfway through the process, while seated next to him was a pilot on his first flight as an instructor. Both were experienced pilots, although they had not flown together before, Hersman said.
"At about 500 feet, he realised that they were low," Hersman told reporters, referring to the instructor pilot's account of the failed last-second attempts to avoid Saturday's disaster. "Between 500 and 200 feet (150 and 60 metres), they had a lateral deviation and they were low. They were trying to correct at that point."
Referring to the instructor pilot, she said it was not until 200 feet that "he recognised the auto-throttles were not maintaining speed" and tried to abort the landing. Hersman had previously said that the plane had been at an altitude of 200 feet 16 seconds before crashing.
Three of the four pilots on board were in the cockpit during the landing, although only two could see the runway, Hersman said, citing the interviews by investigators with the crew.
Hersman said an examination of the wreckage showed that the auto-throttle was "armed," but it was not clear if it had been properly engaged or had somehow failed before the plane slowed to a near-stall and hit the ground. "We need to understand a little better" how the auto-throttle is used, she said.
"They had set speed at 137 knots (158 mph), and he assumed that the auto-throttles were maintaining speed," Hersman said of the instructor pilot.
She noted that the pilots were responsible for maintaining airspeed.
"We have a flying pilot and two other pilots in the cockpit and they have a monitoring function," she said. "One of the critical things that needs to be monitored on an approach to landing is speed. So we need to understand what was going on in the cockpit and also what was going on with the aircraft."
'RAMPANT SPECULATION'
The Air Line Pilots Association International union rebuked the NTSB for its handling of the crash investigation, saying the agency had released too much information too quickly, which could lead to wrong conclusions and compromise safety.
Releasing data from the flight's black boxes without full investigative information for context "has fuelled rampant speculation" about the cause of the crash, ALPA said in a statement.
Hersman rejected the criticism. "We work for the travelling public," she said. "We feel it is important to show our work."
Aviation consultant Hans Weber, the president of TECOP International, said the accident may revive a long-running debate over whether pilots' increasing reliance on automated flight systems has taken a toll on their "hand-flying" skills.
Maintaining proper airspeed and altitude is "the most basic responsibility of the pilot, like breathing in and out," Weber said. But it could be the case, he added, that "pilots are paying attention to the computer rather than paying attention to the fundamentals."
Hersman did not comment on whether anyone in addition to the two flight attendants was ejected from the plane, though the two teenage Chinese students who died were found outside the aircraft. One of them may have been run over by an emergency vehicle, San Francisco fire department officials have said, but the local coroner has not yet released autopsy results showing the cause of death.
Asiana Airlines chief executive Yoon Young-doo arrived in San Francisco on Tuesday to meet US investigators, Asiana staff and survivors of the crash.
Hersman also confirmed witness accounts that at least one emergency escape chute had deployed inside the aircraft, trapping a flight attendant. The pilot who was sitting in the cabin worked to free her, Hersman said.
"I saw a leg sticking out between the slide and the wall. It kept moving," passenger Eugene Rah said in an interview on Monday. He said he and a man he believed was a crew member struggled to free her, adding: "He was asking me if I had anything sharp, but these days nobody can be on board with anything sharp."
She was eventually freed and hospitalised with serious injuries, Rah said.
On July 6, 2013, at 11:26 a.m. PDT (18:26 UTC), a Boeing 777-200ER, registration number HL7742,crashed at San Francisco International Airport upon landing, short of runway 28L's threshold, striking the seawall that projects into San Francisco Bay.One engine and the tail section behind the aft pressure bulkhead became separated from the aircraft.The vertical and both horizontal stabilizers came to rest on the runway before the threshold, while the remainder of the fuselage and wings halted to the left side of the runway. After the aircraft came a rest it is seen that the right engine also came off. Eyewitnesses described a large brief fireball upon the aircraft landing, and a second large explosion minutes after the impact, with a large, dark plume of smoke rising from the fuselage. Evacuation slides were deployed on one side of the plane, and were used to evacuate the passengers.
Warning: Some viewers may find this video to be graphic. A wing walker and her pilot died in a fatal plane crash during the Vectren Air Show at the international airport in Dayton, Ohio.
DAYTON, OHIO A plane carrying a wing walker crashed Saturday as she sat on top of the inverted plane at the Dayton Air Show, killing the performer and her pilot, CBS Dayton affiliate WHIO-TV reports. Terrence Slaybaugh, Dayton's director of aviation, confirmed to WHIO-TV that two people died in the crash.
"Obviously this is a tragedy for what is a very small community," he said.
The identity of the pilot of the plane has not been released.
The Ohio State Highway Patrol is investigating along with the Federal Aviation Administration, which was already on scene for the show.
"Right now there is no conclusive answer about why the accident happened," Slaybaugh said. He said the investigation could take months.
The 450 HP Stearman burst into flames when it hit the ground just before 1 p.m. A fire truck was at the crash site within seconds and extinguished the flames.
"All of a sudden I heard screaming and looked up and there was a fireball," Stan Thayer of Wilmington, Ohio, told WHIO-TV.
Shawn Warwick of New Knoxville, Ohio, said he was watching the plane through binoculars.
"I noticed it was upside-down really close to the ground; she was sitting on the bottom of the plane," Warwick told WHIO-TV. "I saw it just go right into the ground and explode."
His wife was getting a drink when the crash happened.
"I came back, and everybody was just in shock," Cara Warwick told the affiliate.
Many spectators were already leaving when show organizers canceled the show for the day at 1:30 p.m.
The show announcer encouraged parents to move children away from the crash scene.
The act was the third of the day at the 39th Vectren Dayton Air Show.* *taken from youtube description
