A helicopter carrying Uttarakhand Forest Minister Dinesh Agarwal had to make an emergency landing in Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh, India, on September 13.
Authorities said the chopper was forced to land in the Glocal University campus due to bad weather. Mr. Agarwal was en-route to Dehradun at the time.
The aircraft landed uneventfully
Mr. Agarwal continued his journey in a car.
Maintenance, maintenance, maintenance. I’ve said this too many times to count.
Here’s a question: The event below was a maintenance ferry flight. Every time I hear about a post maintenance ferry flight that crashed, I wonder how that maintenance was performed, and what they forgot to do. Maybe they performed maintenance perfectly—I don’t know. It’s just what strikes my mind when that ferry flight goes down. What did that maintenance crew miss? It’s too much like having a brake failure accident while bringing the family car home from the brake shop. But this accident was PRE-inspection. So maybe it is like having the brakes fail on the way to the brake shop…
On January 19, 2014, at 12:20 , a PT. Intan Angkasa Piper PA-31-350 Navajo Chieftain, PK-IWT, flying from from Sentani to Tual crashed on approach to Dumatubun Airport, Maluku, Indonesia. The pilot and three passengers were fatally injured and the airplane was destroyed.
Some reports say it was hit by lightning, but most planes are designed not to catch fire when struck by lightning; careful lightning protection has been engineered into the aircraft. The current tends to travel through the conductive aluminum exterior skin and off an extremity like a wing tip. Additional shielding protects components from haywire side effects called “lightning indirect effects” and bursting into flames is not one of those effects, except in the fuel system, where even a spark is lethal.
So, again, I question maintenance, and the integrity of the fuel system. Was the aluminum skin around the fuel system thick enough to withstand a lighting strike?
Or perhaps it was something else entirely. The flight was described as being pounded by rain and fierce winds (they had just refueled in a thunderstorm)…and the wing fell off before the plane crashed. So was it the gale force winds that caused the wing to come off? Inquiring minds want to know. As always, the investigation is key to finding out why the wing came off and the plane crashed.
Those aboard were a pilot, a technician and two airline employees.
Lufthansa CityLine flight LH-1007 made an emergency landing in Frankfurt, Germany, on September 2nd.
The plane flying from Brussels, Belgium, was descending toward Frankfurt when the crew reported light smoke onboard.
The plane continued for a safe landing. All seventy-three people aboard remained unharmed.
Biman Bangladesh Airlines flight BG-147 made an emergency landing in Chittagong, Bangladesh, on February 23rd.
The Boeing 737-800 plane was flying from Dhaka, Bangladesh, when a passenger attempted to enter the cockpit at gunpoint.
The plane landed uneventfully.
All Passengers and crew members disembarked while the security forces tried to negotiate with the purported hijacker. He was later shot by the security forces when he refused to surrender and was taken to a hospital where he died.
An investigation into the incident is underway.
Emirates flight EK440 had to make an emergency landing at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai, India on August 9th.
The plane, heading from Dubai to Adelaide, Australia, was diverted after an elderly passenger, identified by some media sources as B Peter Richard, of Sydney, died onboard.
The plane landed uneventfully and later returned to Dubai due to Adelaide International Airport’s night-time flight restrictions.
The flight was scheduled to depart at 11 p.m.
Air Canada flight 967 had to return and make an emergency landing at the Grantley Adams International Airport in Christ Church, Barbados, at around 4:30 p.m. on February 5.
The Boeing 777 was heading from Barbados to Toronto, Canada, when the crew reported fire onboard and sought permission for an emergency landing. There were 200 people aboard at the time.
Fire personnel were ready at the scene when the plane landed uneventfully. No one was harmed in the incident however, some local residents said they were scared to see the jet flying at low altitude.
The airline and the airport authorities were investigating.
Lufthansa flight LH-319 had to divert and make an emergency landing in Munich, Germany, on June 25th.
The plane heading from Florence, Italy, to Frankfurt, Germany, was diverted due to a cracked windshield.
The plane landed safely. Everyone aboard remained unharmed.
