Air France flight AF-457 made an emergency landing in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on December 10th.
The Boeing 777-300 plane took off for Charles de Gaulle Airport, France, but had to turn back due to issues with the speed indicators, autopilot and auto thrust.
The plane landed back safely. All passengers and crew members remained unharmed.
Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
Contact photographer Terry Wade
What: American Airlines Boeing 757-200 en route from Recife, Brazil to Miami,FL
Where: Brazil
When: Jan 22nd 2012
Who: 136 passengers, 9 crew
Why: A couple of hours into the flight, the crew ran into some turbulence.
It was severe turbulence that according to passengers “felt like the floor fell out from under,” and which knocked around a couple of flight attendants. A number of unseat-belted people hit the ceiling, including a flight attendant who actually knocked a hole in the ceiling before her trolley landed on her. (I presume she’s one of the five who went to the hospital.) Those trolleys look heavy.
The extent of injuries was not released, but it was apparently not severe enough that they had to scramble to divert to somewhere in the Brazilian bush.
One of the passengers happened to be an ER doctor, and he administered first aid. A number of the uninjured were said to be hysterical.
Miami-Dade Fire Department and Airport Fire and Rescue were on the scene. In Miami, five flight attendants went straight into ambulances and one was treated at the airport.
An IndiGo Airlines flight had to return and make an emergency landing at Swami Vivekananda Airport in Chhattisgarh, India, on September 27th.
The plane took off for Kolkata, India, but had to return shortly afterwards due to a bird strike.
The plane landed back safely. All passengers and crew members remained unharmed.
July 9–The FAA is issuing an Airworthiness Directive (AD) that requires operators of Boeing 757, 767, and 777 airplanes to either inspect or replace certain flight deck windows. The AD only affects the forward viewing windows, not the side windows.
Operators have two options: Begin inspections within 500 flight hours and then continue at intervals that are specific for each of two window designs OR install a new, redesigned window. The inspection takes about an hour.
The AD is aimed at preventing smoke, fire or cracking of the inner layer of the forward viewing window caused by loose electrical connections that are used to heat the window to prevent ice.
Over the past two decades, there have been 11 reports of fire or flames on 757 (five events), 767 (three events), and 777 (three events) airplanes. Improper installation resulted in loose, improperly torqued or cross threaded screws that can contribute to overheating and arcing. The most recent incident was a May 16, 2010 emergency landing by a United 757 at Dulles International Airport.
The FAA proposed the AD in March 2008. The agency received extensive comments and determined additional 757 service information was needed from Boeing. That in-depth review identified unique issues on the upper electrical connections on 757s which will be addressed in a separate AD so as not to hold up the fix for the lower electrical connector issue which constitutes the majority of the service problems identified to date. Although there have been no fire events on 747s, the FAA plans to propose an AD this fall since those later model airplane windows are similar.
This AD affects 1,212 U.S. airplanes out of 2,619 worldwide. The estimated cost for the inspections is $103,020 total for U.S. operators. The window replacement is optional and would be an additional cost.
Air India flight AI-498 made an emergency landing in Udaipur, India, on June 16th.
The Airbus A319-100 plane heading from Rajkot to Delhi, India, was diverted due to loss of cabin pressure.
The plane landed safely. All passengers and crew members remained unharmed.
Biman Bangladesh Airlines flight BG-493 made an emergency landing in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on March 20th.
The plane took off for Saidpur, Bangladesh, but had to turn back due to an issue with the cabin pressure.
The plane landed safely. All sixty-five people aboard remained unharmed.
Pictured: Carpatair Saab in flight
Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
Contact photographer Bogdan Pop
What: Carpatair Saab 2000 en route from the Moldovan capital, Chisinau, to Timisoara in Rumania
Where: emergency landing at Timisoara International Airport in Western Romania
When: Feb 28, 2009
Who: 51 people-47 passengers, 4 crew.
Why: Six miles from the airport, the crew discovered that the plane’s landing gear was stuck. After the flight circled for two hours burning fuel, the plane landed safely on the main landing gear on a 200-yard long bed of foam. No injuries were reported.
Carpatair vice-president Dan Andrei is reported to have said, “When it landed, the plane came down on the side wheels; it braked sharply and at a low speed it came on its front belly, while the front landing gear remained stuck.”
