Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
Contact photographer Rodrigo Carvalho
What: American Airlines Boeing 767-300 en route from Dallas to Santiago Chile
Where: Dallas
When: Apr 1st 2011
Who: 170 passengers 12 crew
Why: After taking off from Dallas/ft Worth, the crew returned to the airport because of a tail strike. They made a safe landing 30 minutes after takeoff. The flight was cancelled.
A Robinson R-44 helicopter crashed in a hayfield around 2 miles north of Ketchum, Oklahoma, on August 25th.
FAA authorities said the helicopter, flying from Ketchum airport, went down after it lost its tail rotor.
The pilot, who was the only one aboard, remained uninjured.
The accident is being investigated.
Hawaiian Airlines Flight HA-50 made an emergency landing at San Francisco International Airport, California, on January 24th.
The plane heading from Hawaii to New York was diverted after a flight attendant suffered a medical emergency.
The plane landed safely. The flight attendant was pronounced dead upon arrival.
A small cargo plane owned by Alpine Air made an emergency landing at Billings Logan International Airport, Montana, on January 19th.
The plane took off for Sidney, Montana, but had to turn back after the pilot failed to fully retract the landing gear.
The plane’s landing collapsed upon landing. The pilot, who was the only one aboard, remained unharmed.
We wrote about two Norwegian Air Shuttle planes that suffered a near miss when two planes followed the same instruction from ATC. The Accident Investigation Board Norway (AIBN) report on the event is below.
Report (Translation)
Description
The 31 October 2012, two airliners from English too close together under a simultaneous missed approach (NAX741) and departure (NAX740) at Oslo Airport. There was strong tailwind on final. The AIBN believes that the flight crew on NAX741 had unrealistic expectations of the ability to be stabilized later in 1000 ft above the airport elevation. The decision to initiate the missed approach was taken at a late stage. Expectations of final-controller and tower controller that the speed of the landing would be reduced sufficiently during the approach, was not met. The missed approach for NAX741 came into conflict with the simultaneous departure of NAX740.
Visibility conditions were such that the tower controller could not maintain visual separation between aircraft. Planes were for each other and both were rising. Tower air traffic controller instructed NAX741 to swing west. A mixture of callsign originated and led to NAX740 initiated clearance given to NAX741. The minimum horizontal distance between the aircraft was about. 0.2 NM (370 m) while the vertical height difference was 500 ft (152 m). AIBN considers that there was real danger of collision in the incident. When the situation first arose, prevented the situation awareness and good reviews from the flight crew and tower controller further escalation of the conflict.
AIBN considers that established and practiced procedures will help to ensure that situations are recognized and averted before they become critical. Data from the cockpit voice recorder (Cockpit Voice Recorder CVR) was not secured. CVR data is important to understand the sequence of events, and AIBN therefore it is unfortunate that CVR data is not guaranteed. AIBN no new safety recommendation in this report, but refers to a previously issued safety recommendation (SL no 2012/06T) not closed.
Type of report: Full report
Location: Oslo Airport Gardermoen ENGM
Event Date: 31/10/2012
ICAO Location indicator: ENGM
Aircraft: Boeing 737-600/700/800 / Boeing 737-600/700/800
Operator: Norwegian Air Shuttle / Norwegian Air Shuttle
Reg notice: LN-DYC / LN-NOM
Flight conditions: IMC
County: Akershus
Type of event: Serious incident
Type of flight: Commercial, scheduled / Commercial, scheduled
Category Aviation: Tung, aircraft (> 10 000kg) / Tung, aircraft (> 10 000kg)
Flykategori: Land plane, multi-engine, turbofan / turbojet
FIR / AOR: ENOS (Oslo ATCC)
Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
Contact photographer Danny Fritsche
What: B-17 bomber (Boeing B-17G-105-VE Flying Fortress)
Where: Chicago
When: June 13, 2011, 09:30
Who: 7 aboard
Why: A working B-17 bomber which had been in a $3.5 million dollar restoration (Tim Reilly Vintage Aircraft conservators) for fourteen years, took off from Aurora Municipal Airport on a test flight—and caught fire. John Hess, the pilot, made an emergency landing in a cornfield.
Witnesses described a “cracking noise” before the plane landed in the field, streaming black smoke. Fire fighters were impeded by the muddy cornfield, and the plane burned.
This weekend the plane was grounded with a leak.
No one sustained serious injury although one person did have a minor head injury.
The plane was described as a “national treasure,” and one of a dozen B-17s still operable.
Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
Contact Photographer Tommy Desmet
What: Thomas Cook Airlines Airbus A320-200 en route from Brussels Belgium to Tenerife
Where: over Bay of Biscay
When: Aug 14th 2009
Why: While on the way to Tenerife, the windshield of the airbus cracked. The crew declared an emergency and returned to Brussels for repairs that delayed takeoff for about 7 hours.
