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Category: <span>AAIB</span>

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Four Killed as Small Plane Crashes in Somerset, UK

small planeA six-seater light plane crashed near Churchinford village in Blackdown Hills, Somerset, United Kingdom, on November 14.

The plane went down while it was heading from Surrey to Devon.

There were four people aboard the plane, including two men and two women; all of them were killed in the crash.

The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) will investigate the cause of crash.


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Report on Boeing 787 Ground fire Heathrow July 12, 2013

This Special Bulletin contains information on the progress of the investigation into a ground fire on an unoccupied Boeing 787-8, registration ET-AOP, at London Heathrow Airport on 12 July 2013.

It follows the publication of Special Bulletin S5/2013 on 18 July 2013. The AAIB are assisted in the investigation by Accredited Representatives from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) (representing the State of Design and Manufacture), the Civil Aviation Authority of Ethiopia (representing the State of Registry and the Operator) and the Transportation Safety Board (TSB) of Canada (representing the State of component manufacture), with technical advisors from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the operator and the aircraft and component manufacturers.

In Special Bulletin S5/2013, the AAIB reported the existence of extensive heat damage in the upper portion of the aircraft’s rear fuselage, particularly in an area coincident with the location of the Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT). The absence of any other aircraft systems in this area containing stored energy capable of initiating a fire, together with evidence from forensic examination of the ELT, led the investigation to conclude that the fire originated within the ELT battery.

Life Jacket with AirPocket Can Save Lives


The Lifejacket Airpocket Plus (LAP) combined lifejacket and hybrid rebreather is a lifesaver. Imagine a life jacket that lets you breathe air. Genius, right? I’ve seen too many helicopter crashes to and from oil rigs. Some of those fatalities should be preventable. This hybrid life jacket would really come in handy to have on a Super Puma helicopter plunging into the North Sea, or the Gulf of Mexico. I hope I’m never in that situation, but if I am, you can bet I’ll be wearing one, and I’ll have read the directions.

A couple of lives may not have been saved with it simply because of directions.

A rebreather is an apparatus that absorbs the carbon dioxide of exhaled breath to permit the recycling of available oxygen. The hybrid unit is a little something extra.

The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) believes the instructions on how to use this device need to include the information that the rebreather has an air supply; so if someone is in the middle of drowning, they don’t have to be going down with a last breath of air. The rebreather already has some. It’s not like a scuba diving tank with loads of air, but hey, it’s a way to breathe if you’re submerged in a helicopter and don’t have gills. What if all you need is just enough air to keep you alive to get the seatbelt off, or to swim out of an opening? That’s some precious air, all right.

So kudos to the revised pre-flight briefing material. Even if it is a knee-jerk reaction after another tragic helicopter crash, good idea AAIB.


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Final Report on Sikorsky Incident

When a Bristow S-76 Helicopter with eight passengers and two crew fishtailed as it was flying from from Humberside Airport to a gas platform in the North Sea, the helicopter made a precautionary landing. The crew smelled smoke in the cockpit at the time.

The investigation concluded that an electrical short had occurred in a wiring loom.

The incident occurred on Sept 26, 2012.

The report is below:

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