Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
Contact photographer Kevin Rowett
What: Saudi Arabian Boeing 777-200 en route from New York to Riyadh Saudi Arabia
Where: New York
When: Nov 28th 2009
Who: not available
Why: While en route, the plane indicated a main gear door not closing. The plane dumped fuel and returned to NY for a safe landing less than an hour after take-off
Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
Contact photographer Gustavo Bolson Maia
What: NOAR Linhas Aéreas Let L-410UVP-E20 en route from Recife to Natal
Where: 1.1 miles SSE of Recife-Guararapes International Airport
When: July 13, 2011
Who: 2 crew, 14 passengers, 16 aboard
Why: Shortly after takeoff from Guararapes-Gilberto Freyre International airport in Recife, the Noar LET L410 Turboprop, the pilot declared an emergency. The crew said it would attempt to land at Boa Viagem beach, and made a steep descent.
Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
Contact photographer Wagner Damasio – Cavok Brasil Team
The plane reportedly into a vacant lot sandwiched between the Piedade and Boa Viagem neighborhoods at 0651 local time. The fire burned the plane, leaving a charred shell 300 feet short of where the pilot had intended to land. There was a total loss of life, but the black boxes have been recovered.
The plane had a recent history of power loss on takeoff.
The pilot had 15.000 flight hours and 2.000 on type.
The pilot avoided landing on a densely populated area.
LET is a Czech-built plane that had been in operation for a year. According to a spokesperson, two LET-410 twin-engine aircraft were purchased new in the Czech Republic. The Noar began its daily operations in the Northeast on June 14, 2010.
Noar is a small regional airline
12 second capture of the plane coming down behind a building.
Lufthansa flight LH-511D had to divert for an unscheduled landing at Milan–Malpensa Airport, Italy, on March 18th.
The Boeing 747-400 plane en-route from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Frankfurt, Germany, was diverted due to an issue with the de-icing systems.
The plane landed safely. Everyone aboard remained unharmed.
Azul Linhas Aereas flight AD-8704 had to return and make an emergency landing at Viracopos International Airport, Brazil, on July 23rd.
The Airbus A330-200 plane took off for Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but had to turn back after both autopilots failed.
The plane landed back safely. All passengers and crew members remained unharmed.
Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
Contact photographer Alastair T. Gardiner
Newspaper reports talk about traces of black soot on the Auxiliary Power Unit. The APU is like your computer backup—similar in theory to the battery backup you may have at home hooked to your computer.
The APU is an auxiliary engine that provided electric power and air to the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 until the main engines began to run.
We ourselves haven’t seen soot, or proof of fire–but we haven’t seen much proof at all, since the report that we keep hearing whispers of has not been made public.
Some facts are known We know, for example, that…
—…the APU is located in the rudder section.
—…the weather was bad.
OLBA 250300Z 06004KT 030V090 5000 VCTS RA FEW020CB BKN026 10/06 Q1014 NOSIG
We have heard rumors which may or may not be unfounded:
—Statements made anonymously by Lebanese airport sources report that Captain Habtamu Benti, the pilot in command (PIC) of the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737-800 encountered engine problems, perhaps a flame out, during takeoff, and requested permission to abort the flight and return to Beirut. He was given clearance to do so, but another aircraft, a Etihad Airlines flight from Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates was in the process of landing and could have interfered with his emergency maneuvers. *
But some information has been made public.
—The rudder found at the plane’s tail was reported to have been sent to France. *
—“One of the five cockpit voice recorders which has a damaged segment will be sent from France’s BEA to a Seattle-based company [Honeywell] to recover that lost segment.” *
So we have even more questions. Where, for example, are the statements of the witnesses? What has France said about the rudder? Has the APU been found, and if so, what is its condition?
Even if ATC sent pilot in to a storm, the pilot also has radar and should have seen the storm and refused the order to take off and/or the heading issued to him. Did his radar fail? Did the APU fail? It might well be that the pilot was misled by a radar system in the plane that was not operating correctly. Unlikely, but, possible. There are still a lot of possibilities we can not rule out. The captain had too many hours logged to take off in to a storm with a plane that he knew was not built to withstand the forces of a cell ahead of him.
Even if there is no immediate report available yet, we look forward to the promised release in March/July. (They say that data collection will continue until March 15 2011, in April the data will be verified/validated by Ethiopian and Lebanese authorities, officials of Boeing and the US National Transport Safety Board by May 30th, with a tentative public release date in July.) When more official information is released, it will help to rule out all gross speculation, so we can focus on possible culpable parties in the chain of events that caused this tragedy.
We shall see.
What: Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 en route from Beirut to Addis Ababa
Where: 2 miles west of the coastal village of Na’ameh.
When: Jan 25 2010
Who: 7 crew 83 passengers
Why: Shortly after taking off in stormy weather and heavy lightning, Lebanese ATC lost contact. The plane disappeared from radar 45 minutes after leaving Beirut. Witnesses on the coast saw the plane as it crashed into the sea. So far 9 bodies have been found by members of the Lebanese army .
Update
Initial reports of 7 survivors, became 9 bodies, and now the count has reached 21 bodies.
The site of the crash is 2 miles west of the coastal village of Na’ameh.
Fifty-four passengers were Lebanese, 22 Ethiopian, two were British and there were also Canadian, Russian, French, Iraqi and Syrian nationals.
A Cypriot police helicopter has joined the Lebanese army in the search for survivors, and two U.N. helicopters are on the scene.
Ethiopian Airlines is state owned, and has a standing order of 10 of Boeing’s Next-Generation 737-800s
—
ET-409 Incident – 25 January, 2010
Ethiopian flight ET-409 was scheduled to operate from Beirut to Addis Ababa on January 25th lost contact with the Lebanese air controllers shortly after take off. The flight departed at 02:35 Lebanese time from Beirut International Airport.
Flight ET-409 carried 82 passenger plus 8 Ethiopian Crew members. Out of the total passengers 23 were Ethiopian, 51 Lebanese, 1 Turkish, 1 French, 2 British, 1 Russian, 1 Canadian, 1 Syrian, 1 Iraqi nationals.
Strobe flashes
Air Algerie flight AH-1460 was intercepted by two French fighter jets on the way to Lyon, France, on January 9th.
The Mirage 2000 fighter jets were dispatched after the Boeing 737-800 plane, flying from Constantine, Algeria, lost communication with the ATC.
The plane continued for a safe landing under escort. All passengers and crew members remained unharmed.
Atlasjet flight KK-9764 had to make an emergency landing in Istanbul, Turkey, on June 18th.
The Boeing 737-800 plane took off for Tbilisi, Georgia, but had to turn back due to a lightning strike.
The plane landed uneventfully. Everyone aboard remained safe.
