Pictured: A Bell 206 in Mexico
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Contact photographer Jonathan Parra
What: RCG Radio y Television Saltillo Bell 206
Where: Saltillo, Coahuila Mexico
When: October 30 2009
Who: 4 on board, three of them seriously injured.
Why: Apparently the plane crashed due to a short circuit in the rotor, hit a roof and burst into flame. Individuals inside were evacuated. So far, no fatalities have been reported.
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Contact photographer Andras Kisgergely
What: Southern Air Cargo Boeing 747-200 en route from Liege to Portugal
Where: Liege Belgium
When: Oct 30th 2009
Who: 5 crew
Why: While en route, the plane suffered a fire in the left engine. The crew put it out, dumped fuel and landed back at Liege.
What: 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing AH-1W Super Cobra helicopter and Coast Guard C-130
Where: San Clemente Island
When: October 30 2009 7:10 p.m
Who: 7 on board the plane; 2 on the helicopter
Why: A Coast Guard plane and a Marine Corps helicopter have collided at San Clemente Island off the coast of California. A search has ensued with three Coast Guard cutters, an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter, four navy vessels and multiple helicopters.
Pictured: Italy – Vigili del Fuoco Eurocopter AS-350B-3 Ecureuil
© Photo by Stefano Capuzzo
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Contact photographer Stefano Capuzzo
What: Helinka Eurocopter Ecureuil
Where: Loreto Province between Trompeteros and Saramuro Peru in the Corrientes River
When: 9:15 29 Oct 2009
Who: 2 fatalities, 2 injuries
Why: Pilot Hernie Cordova and Edgar Zevallo were killed; the survivors are Chugudaly Davila and Pedro Paredes Vela Junio.
Pictured: A Qantas Flight
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Contact photographer Sneeze Lam
What: Qantas Boeing 737-800 en route from Adelaide to Perth.
Where: en route
When: October 30, 2009
Who: 110 passengers
Why: When the captain of the Quantas flight fell ill, the co-pilot called an ambulance in to wait for their arrival. The pilot was too sick to fly the plane, but the co-pilot was able to land solo.
Pictured: A Garuda Indonesia Airbus A330-341
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Contact photographer Sarmad Al-Khozaie
What: Garuda Indonesia Boeing 737-500 en route from Jakarta to Banda Aceh
Where: Soekarno-Hatta International Airport
When: October 30, 2009
Who: 49 passengers
Why: When the plane’s inner left wheel fell off at 500 feet, the plane returned to the airport. After the safe albeit wobbly landing, passengers debarked and boarded an alternative flight. Apparently the tire fell in an open area.
What: AirVentures in Paradise Cessna 17 en route to St. Thomas
Where: US Virgin Islands
When: 10/29/2009
Who: 3 aboard, all killed
Why: The report says “AIRCRAFT CRASHED AFTER PILOT REQUESTED TO RETURN TO THE AIRPORT SHORTLY AFTER TAKEOFF, CHRISTIANSTED, US VIRGIN ISLANDS”
Dental records are being used to identify the remains.
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Contact photographer Oleg Chaplin
What: Asiana Airbus A321-231
Where: RJBB, Osaka
When: October 28, 2009
Who: 147 on board
Why: On touchdown, after the plane’s tail struck the runway, the pilot performed a go-round. On the second pass, the plane landed safely.
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Contact photographer Jeff Rodeback
What: Delta/ Skywest Airlines Canadair CRJ-900 en route from Salt Lake City,UT to Houston,TX
Where: Grand Junction
When: Oct 28th 2009
Who: 68 passengers
Why: Thirty minutes after takeoff, cabin pressure dropped and oxygen masks were deployed. The crew decided to divert to Grand Junction where they landed safely.
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Contact photographer Thomas Posch
What: Delta Airlines Boeing 767-400 en route from Paris to Atlanta, GA
Where: Atlanta, GA
When: Oct 27th 2009
Who:
Why: The flight encountered turbulence on approach to Atlanta. One member of the flight crew was injured.
Can’t phone while driving, can’t text while driving, can’t drink while driving. What next? For pilots, don’t surf while flying. No federal rules specifically ban pilots’ use of laptops or other personal electronic devices above 10,000 feet, but Delta does have just such a policy.
I know the Internet can be engrossing. I’ve logged on for one minute and looked up 2 or 3 hours later, but I wasn’t driving—or flying a plane—when I did it.
Delta has suspended Richard Cole and Timothy Cheney, the pilots who overshot their destination by 150 miles.
Would it have been better if they’d been sleeping?
You may be surprised that in some places, it is allowed for pilots to sleep while flying. Pilot Antonio De Biasi provided me this little tidbit of information:
International carriers including former Varig, Air France, British Airways and Qantas allow pilots to nap, but sleeping while flying is prohibited at U.S. airlines by the FAA. Just last month, the Air Transport Association again pressed the FAA to allow controlled cockpit napping, citing NASA research that found a mid-flight snooze significantly reduces the risks of overall pilot fatigue.
The NASA study begun in 1989 and allowed one group of pilots flying across the Pacific to take a 25-minute nap while their co-pilots flew the planes, while a control group was required to remain awake for the entire flight. Those without the naps nodded off five times as much – including while on the approach to the airport – as those who got some sleep.
What is scary to me is the finding that pilots without naps nodded off five times as frequently as those who slept. If this was a blind study, those same ratios may be true for all pilots flying across the Pacific. Pilots nodding off may not be that unusual. That’s disturbing enough for me to want to bring an air horn on my next flight, just to honk it at regular intervals or whenever the captain is not a chatty sort.
Sleeping and surfing on the job: neither are illegal, at least, not yet, anyway.
And I am sure that I’m not the only passenger who wants the only law I want my pilots breaking to be the law of gravity.
Pictured: A similar Beech A36 Bonanza 36
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Contact photographer James whipple
What: Beechcraft A36TC en route from Kalamazoo to Muskoka, Ontario
Where: Kalamazoo Battle Creek International Airport
When: Oct 27, 2009
Who: pilot
Why: Witnesses say the plane took off at a low speed, wavered and began to flap back and forth. Just after liftoff, the plane crashed past the north end of the runway after plowing through security fences and coming to a halt in the parking lot and catching fire. The pilot’s injuries were fatal.
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Contact photographer Olivier Corneloup
What: Air France Boeing 747-400 en route from Miami to Paris, France
Where: Atlantic Ocean
When: Oct 26th 2009
Who: Not Available
Why: An hour after leaving Miami, the flight had technical trouble arising from a possible lightning strike. After spending nearly an hour trying to fix the issue, the flight turned back, landing back in Miami 2 and 3/4 hours after leaving. Passengers were provided transport on another Boeing 25 hours later.
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Contact photographer Ian Tate
What: Robinson R22 Beta II en route from Verona Boscomantico
Where: 5 meters from the shore of Lake Garda, near Verona in Torri del Benaco
When: October 26, 2009
Who: 2 on board: Paolo Alberti di Desenzano (Brescia), pilot and owner of the airplane, and Alexander Ferron
Why: While on a local flight, the plane crashed about twenty minutes after takeoff, near the Lake Garda shoreline in Torri del Benaco.
A crane and divers assisted in the recovery efforts.
The remains were recovered after the fire, still in their seats.
The helicopter had only logged 170 flight hours.
Pictured: A JetBlue Airways Embraer ERJ-190-100IGW 190AR
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Contact photographer Ricardo Morales
What: Jetblue Embraer ERJ-190 en route from Portland Long Beach CA
Where: Long Beach
When: Oct 26th 2009
Who: Not available
Why: On take-off (most likely) one of the jet’s tires blew out. Prior to landing, the flight verified that a tire was flat. The emergency landing was safe, with rescue standing by.
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Pictured: A Beech B100 King Air
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Contact photographer Andrew Compolo
What: Mazak Properties twin-turboprop Beech B100 King Air en route from Uvalde to Leesburg, Florida
Where: on a ranch in Duval County
When: October 26, 2009 11:42 a.m. Monday
Who: 4 on board
Why: The pilot had reported serious turbulence to ATC, and complained of being unable to maintain 25,000 feet. ATC saw the plane was losing altitude.
A Dept. of Public Safety helicopter sighted the wreckage.
Pictured: a Lan Peru Airbus A320-233 on approach to Cuzco
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Contact photographer Sam Chui
What: LAN Peru Airlines Airbus A320-200 en route from Puerto Maldonado to Cuzco
Where: Cuzco
When: Oct 26th 2009
Who: 90 passengers
Why: On approach to Cuzco, flight instrumentation detected an unsafe gear. After flying in a holding pattern, ultimately, the Airbus landed safely.
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Contact photographer Cary Liao
What: Air Tran Airways Boeing 717-200
Where: Norfolk, Virginia
When: October 26, 2009
Who: 117 passengers
Why: maneuvered to avoid another airplane during cruise-descent near Norfolk, Virginia. The 2 certificated airline transport pilots, 2 flight attendants, and 116 passengers were not injured.
One flight attendant received serious injuries, and one passenger received minor injuries.
An hour into the flight the captain had made a public address announcement to report turbulence, within seconds of when one flight attendants in the forward galley was “thrown” into the galley counter, and another “came up slightly” off her jumpseat. It appeared to both of them that the airplane had “dropped,” several hundred feet.
A flight attendants who noticed a 10 year old boy exiting an aft lavatory decided to wait to be seated until the boy had made his way back to his assigned seat when both of them were tossed to the ceiling.
An eye doctor and a retired paramedic assisted the injured until paramedics met the flight.
The operations center received an “ACARS” (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System) message from the flight crew advising them that a flight attendant had fallen and a boy had a “bump on head.” They also advised that they had been descending from flight level 350 to 330 due to turbulence.
Pictured: A S-Air British Aerospace BAe-125-700B (only because we couldn’t find the original
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Contact photographer Gleb Osokin
actual plane involved
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Contact photographer LAlex
What: S-Air Hawker-125 Executive Jet en route from Vnukovo airport in Moscow to the Minsk international airport.
Where: Minsk
When: October 26, 2009
Who: Two passengers and three crew
Why: The Russian business jet crashed Monday night into a swampy area near Minsk while on approach to the airport. 5 are confirmed dead, including CEO of the S-Air airline, Marat Romashkin. A sixth passenger was supposed to aboard but missed the flight.
The plane failed it’s first landing and disappeared off radar. The wreckage was 2.5 miles from the airport.
The S-Air fleet includes Yak-42D, Tu-134, Yak-40, Hawker-125-700B and Hawker-125-800B planes.
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Contact photographer Kris Mogford
What: United Airlines Boeing 747-400 en route from Bangkok to Tokyo
Where: Tokyo
When: Oct 25th 2009
Why: After a hard landing at Tokyo’s Narita Airport, passengers debarked safely. The UA Boeing was examined after landing and damage was found on the underside of the #4 engine cowling as well as markings on the runway.
What: Russian Boeing 747 cargo flight en route
from Kandahar
Where: Sharjah International Airport
When: Sunday October 25 7.30pm
Who: Not available
Why: At Sharjah International Airport, a Russian cargo plane made an emergency landing when a fire developed in one of its four engines. The pilot shut down the affected engine and made a safe landing. The aircraft is currently grounded at the Sharjah airport pending repair and investigation.
The incident occurred four days after the Azza Transport B707 at Sharjah on Oct 21st 2009 went up in a fireball and grounded the airport for several hours.
Pictured: A Tokyo-bound American AirlinesBoeing 777-223/ER
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Contact photographer Ben Wang
What: American Airlines Boeing 777-200 en route from Dallas to Tokyo
Where: 43 miles southeast of Narita over the Pacific
When: Monday Oct 26 3:40 p.m.
Who: 228 people aboard
Why: As heavy weather ( Typhoon Lupit’s rain and strong winds) approach Japan’s east coast, the Japanese weather service announced a weather warning.
Several (5 passengers) aboard the Tokyo jet were injured by turbulence. After landing, all 5 were taken to a Tokyo area hospital.
Pictured: TAM Airbus A330-223 arriving from Rio
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Contact photographer Baires Aviation
What: TAM Linhas Aereas Airbus A330-200 en route from New York JFK to Rio de Janeiro
Where: Rio de Janeiro
When: Oct 23/24th 2009
Why: On approach to Rio, a passenger began feeling unwell. On debarking, she passed out in the jet bridge. By the time the ambulance arrived 25 minutes later, she was pronounced dead at the scene.
Doctors say that she suffered “economy class syndrome”, actually known as Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT), an event which creates blood clots in the lower veins of the legs.
A substantial amount of money and several credit cards disappeared the passenger’s purse, according to relatives.
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Contact photographer Vatche Mitilian
What: Air Arabia Airbus A320-214 en route from Athens to Sharjah
Where: Athens
When: 24-OCT-2009
Who: NOT AVAILABLE
Why: The crew aborted takeoff from Athens when the engine did not sound as if it were operating normally. The control panel “Full Authority Digital Engine Control’ (FADEC) warned of irregularities in the left engine.
The plane slowed with hot brakes; and a piece of the plane was found on the runway, later identified as the engine panel.
Passengers debarked without incident, and were provided a replacement plane the following day.
Pictured: Alitalia McDonnell Douglas MD-82 (DC-9-82)
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Contact photographer Spotnap
What: Alitalia McDonnell Douglas MD-82 en route from Rome to Palermo Italy
Where: Midway between Rome and Palermo
When: Oct 24th 2009
Who: n/a
Why: While en route, the weather radar failed. The crew decided to return to Rome where they made a safe landing. Passengers were provided another plane 3 hours later.