A U.S. Air Force KC10 tanker plane made an emergency landing at Monterey Regional Airport, California, on December 8.
Authorities said the plane that took off from Travis Air Force Base, near Fairfield, requested an emergency landing due to smoke in cabin.
The plane landed safely. There were five crew members aboard at the time; all of them remained unharmed.
An L39 jet crashed at Apple Valley Airport in San Bernardino County, California, on December 6.
Authorities said the plane caught fire after the crash.
Two people were killed in the crash. One of them has been tentatively identified as Michael (Mike) Mangold, 60, who was an aerobatics champion for Red Bull.
The airport was shut down following the accident.
The FAA and the NTSB will investigate.
A private plane made an emergency landing at Palm Springs International Airport, California, on December 4.
Airport authorities said the plane, carrying two people, requested an emergency landing after its landing gear failed to deploy.
The plane landed on its belly. Both occupants remained unhurt.
United Flight 2005 had to return and make an emergency landing at Sacramento International Airport, California, on November 25.
The Airbus A320 plane took off for Denver, Colorado, but had to return shortly afterwards after a geese hit its right engine, causing a significant damage.
The plane landed safely. All 114 passengers remained uninjured.
The aircraft was taken out of service while the passengers had to re-book the flights.
American Airlines flight AA-123 had to divert and make an emergency landing at Los Angeles International Airport, California, on November 24.
The Boeing 767-300, flying from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, Texas, to Honolulu, Hawaii, had to divert in emergency due to an issue with its aileron.
The plane landed safely.
All 137 passengers aboard remained unhurt.
A small plane crashed and caught fire at Brackett Field Airport, La Verne, California, at around 1:44 P.M. on November 19.
The single-engine Cessna crashed while the pilot was attempting to make an emergency landing. According to the FAA, “The aircraft … struck a perimeter fence upon landing.”
All 2 people aboard sustained injuries.
The incident is under investigation.
American Airlines flight AA-2472 had to divert and make an emergency landing at Los Angeles International Airport, Los Angeles, California, on November 16.
The Boeing, en-route from San Diego, California, to Dallas, Texas, had to divert due to a problem with its flaps.
The plane landed safely.
All 182 passengers and 6 crew members remained unhurt.
Southwest Airlines flight WN-386 had to reject take off from San Jose International Airport, California, on October 27.
The Ontario-bound Boeing 737-300 plane was accelerating for take off when its right hand engine ingested a bird, prompting the crew to reject take off at a high speed.
The plane safely returned to the apron.
The airline arranged a replacement plane for the passengers.
Southwest flight 2010 had to return and make an emergency landing at Los Angeles International Airport, California, on October 18.
According to the airline, the plane was heading to San Francisco when the the pilot declared emergency due to a physical altercation between two passengers. Some sources reported that a male passenger choked a female passenger after she reclined the seat in front of him.
The plane landed safely. The male passenger was taken in by FBI agents for questioning.
The airline arranged an alternate plane for the remaining 136 passengers.
United Airlines Flight 869 returned to San Francisco International Airport, California, on the night of October 10.
The plane, heading towards Hong Kong, had to make emergency landing due to fuel shortage.
The plane landed safely.
Everyone aboard remained safe.
A small plane crashed into a home in 1600 block of Tionontati St. California town, Nevada-California border, on the night of October 10.
The Beech 35 Bonanza crashed in the south of Lake Tahoe Airport, California, just after taking off.
The 2 passengers aboard were killed while no injuries were reported in the home.
The incident is under investigation.
A small Piper Cherokee plane made an emergency landing at Red Hill and McGaw avenues in Irvine, Orange County, California, on September 16.
Authorities said the plane, owned by Orange Coast College, came to rest at MacArthur Boulevard near John Wayne Airport.
There were 2 people, including a student pilot and an instructor, aboard at the time; none of them reported any injuries.
The FAA is looking into the cause of crash.
United Airlines Flight 1199 (Boeing 737-990/ER) had just landed from Newark with 175 aboard; Alaska Airlines flight 143 (Boeing 757-224) to Portland was departing with 182 aboard when they made contact.
The left hand winglet of the arriving 737 contacted the right hand horizontal stabilizer of the departing 757. Fortunately the Alaska jet was not on its take-off run, so the impact happened at a crawl (i.e. “taxiing at a low speed.”). Passengers said they felt a jolt. The planes were stuck together; and part of one plane had “snapped off.”
The impact occurred at 7:51, derailing travel plans of the passengers, and scheduling for the two damaged jets. Some passengers were put up at local hotels, but there were no reported injuries.
A passenger who shot a well-circulated picture that was released on twitter was besieged with reporter requests to post the image. Actor Peter Cambor who was aboard also tweeted that the jets were “stuck together.”
An aircraft flying high over Modesto, California, is being suspected after a large chunk of ice crashed through a house on September 9th.
According to the resident Monica Savath, she was with her family in the living room when they heard a loud bang. Upon checking, they found a hole in the garage’s roof and shattered ice.
Fortunately, no one was injured.
According to National Weather Service meteorologist Jim Mathews, it could be a loose frozen vapor from an aircraft.
Two Southwest Airlines Jets collided at Oakland International Airport, California, on August 30.
Authorities said the Orange County-bound flight 2674 was pushing back from the gate when its wing tip came in contact with another jet that had just arrived from Phoenix.
No injuries were reported.
Both aircrafts were grounded after the incident.
A small plane crashed in Llano, near Lake Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California, on August 27.
Authorities said the single-engine Piper PA25 crashed in a vacant field near 165th Street East and East Avenue X.
The pilot, identified as Channing Morse, 67, of San Diego, was killed at the spot.
The cause of crash is being investigated.
A single-engine Cessna 172 and a twin-engine Sabreliner collided midair near Brown Field Municipal Airport in San Diego, California, at around 11 A.M. on August 16.
The accident happened near Otay Mesa Road and Harvest Street when both aircrafts were approaching Brown Field Municipal Airport.
Five people were killed in the crash. Their identities are not known at the moment.
The FAA and the NTSB are investigating.
“
A banner-towing plane crashed and caught fire at Compton/Woodley Airport, located in Los Angeles County, California, on August 9th.
The single-engine Aviat A1 plane crashed while attempting to pick up an advertising banner.
The pilot, who was the only one aboard, was killed in the crash while another person on the ground sustained non-life-threatening injuries.
According to Los Angeles County Aviation Commission official Dennis Lord, “For some reason, he turned loose of the banner. He was down at a very slow speed. The aircraft stalled and impacted the ground. Why is yet to be determined.
Virgin Australia flight VA-8 returned and made an emergency landing at Los Angeles International Airport, California, on the morning of July 29.
The Boeing 777, heading towards Brisbane, Australia, was turned around after the pilots noticed a crack in its windshield.
The passenger jet landed safely and there were no reported injuries.
After inspection, the crew “rectified the issue”, and allowed the plane to fly again.
A single-engine Beechcraft BE35 crashed into the yard of a house in Riverside, California, on the afternoon of July 26.
The accident happened when the pilot was trying to an make emergency landing at Riverside Municipal Airport, California, due to engine malfunction.
The plane caught fire after hitting the yard. The pilot, who was the only person aboard, was pronounced dead at the scene.
The FAA and NTSB were investigating the accident.
A SkyWest/United Express Canadair CRJ made a belly landing at Los Angeles International Airport with the left main gear not fully extended. None of the 43 aboard reported injury. The video below shows sparks on landing, with the commentators realizing on air there were not 4 aboard but a full plane. The video has been cut so that you do not see the landing initially, but eventually they show the friction of the landing. News of the incident was released without the flight number, origin or destination.
The incident occurred at 8:23 a.m.
The CRJ is a regional commuter. Passengers were able to disembark normally, without slides, and were bussed to the terminal. Emergency services were standing by.
On Feb 10 2013, Alaska Airlines flight 837 en route from Norman Y Mineta San Jose Int’l Airport to Honolulu departed and returned to Mineta San Jose after a power problem in a navigation system an hour into the flight. 132 passengers and six crew were aboard.
When the captain decided to return to Mineta San Jose, the San Jose Fire Department was on standby.
The Boeing 737-800 (738) made a safe landing at 9:40 a.m after two hours in the air, and did not need towing.
The replacement flight was scheduled to leave at 10:45.
The Asiana investigation continues.
Back in July, the pilot who was insecure about making a visual approach in a 777 crashed at San Francisco International Airport on a visual approach in Asiana Flight 214’s Boeing 777. Specifically, he told NTSB investigators “it was very difficult to perform a visual approach with a heavy airplane.” The glideslope was not working at the San Francisco airport, and that was an instrument the (*undertrained) pilot was relying on. The plane came in so low the tail struck the seawall and broke off. The video below shows the plane rotate 360 degrees and catch fire by the runway.
Video with news commentary
Before impact, the relief pilot in the jump seat repeated several times “sink rate” trying to warn the pilots at the controls that the jet was too quickly losing altitude. One of the pilots said “It’s low.” Then there was a stick shaker alert (which occurs when the plane is about to stall from flying too slowly. I once had a pilot do a presentation that included the disturbing grinding of the stick shaker alarm as it violently vibrated the control yoke. It’s an alarming direction to the pilots to increase thrust.)
When the stick shaker went off, the instructor called for a go around. It went off four seconds before impact. It was too late.
Both the instructor and the captain were relying on the auto throttle, and both were unaware it was off.
I’m not discounting the wounds of the injured, nor those three deaths, nor the tragedy of one of the teen victims being run over by an airport crash tender. (That’s a whole tragedy by itself—who knows if she might have survived but for being so obscured by foam that she was not visible to crash responders—through the firemen who carried her out surely must have known she was there.)
A dozen critically injured, a hundred-sixty-nine injured, but only three deaths.
It’s nothing short of a miracle. Especially on inspecting the condition of the burned out shell of the hull. Especially on reviewing the just-released surveillance video that shows the plane splintering after impacting the firewall, cartwheeling like a crippled gymnast down the runway and dissolving into a cloud of dust and flame. No jet fuel fire here——leaking oil ignited as it poured on to a hot engine.
The Kazan crash (Tatarstan Airlines Flight 363) from November 17th is fresh in my mind. Everyone aboard–fifty people (forty-four passengers and six crew) all died. The plane just fell from the sky while landing at an impossible 75-degree-nose-down attitude, piloted by a pilot whose license is apparently fake. Everyone in that crash died. (Tatarstan surveillance below.)
Of course one can see the physics—that everyone on the Tatarstan flight received the full direct impact, versus how the rolling of the Asiana plane dispersed some of the impact energy. Still, there is tremendous force in a crash.
I know I should be talking about pilot training, because this is yet another crash that appears to be due to pilots becoming too dependent on technology. But I will focus on that another day. Right now, I am overwhelmed after looking at the crash tape.
Asiana—Cartwheeling Catastrophe
I am surprised that I have neither heard or seen choruses of amazement that all but three people survived the rolling catastrophe in San Francisco. Some credit should perhaps go to the rescue crew, quick actions of the cabin crew, performance of the emergency slides, and maybe even the aerodynamics of the 777 whose seats are required to withstand 16g of dynamic force.
Sure, there was error involved in this crash, but when you look at the survival rate, some credit is due to the 5.5 billion Boeing put into research, development and safety of the 777.
A Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent was shot at a Terminal 3 checkpoint at Los Angeles International Airport.
Swat responded. Los Angeles Police Department put LAX on tactical alert. An evacuation of the airport followed. All planes with flights heading to the airport were held at their points of origin.
The incident began at 9:30 a.m. at Terminal 3 at LAX. A twitter from John Fostrom said that “a lax colleague walks closer to see what is going on and TSA person runs at him with look of terror. Colleague turns to me and says run!”
A gunman with a rifle fired shots in Terminal 3. A twenty-nine year old man was shot in the leg at 9:30 a.m. and someone else was also wounded.
The gunman was taken into custody alive.
A hangar collapsed in flames after a twin-engine Cessna 525A CitationJet CJ2 owned by Creative Real Estate Exchange veered into it while landing at Santa Monica Municipal Airport.
The Cessna had flown from Hailey, Idaho and landed in Santa Monica at 6:20 pm.
Witnesses said it looked like a normal landing till it veered off course. The burning plane made three explosions. The number of people aboard the plane has not been released, but it is reported as “unsurvivable.”
