What: British Airways A321 en route from London Heathrow to Glasgow Where: London When: Dec 20th 2011 Who: pilot and co-pilot Why: After takeoff, pilots declared an emergency when they became lightheaded. They returned to Heathrow and made a safe landing. The problem was reported as a technical fault due to fumes or pressure problems in the cockpit. On declaration, pilots called for oxygen which was brought by cabin crew; and oxygen masks were apparently not released for the passengers. The flight made a safe landing. Paramedics were the first aboard, attending to the pilots.
The replacement jet provided for the passengers took them to their destination with a three hour delay,
What: PIPER PA-28-151 CHEROKEE, ARROW, WARRIOR, ACHER Where: Longmont When: 12/18/2011 5:36 pm Who: pilot Why: A pilot flying over Longmont had engine trouble and had to make an emergency landing.
The pilot realized he could not make the airport, and maneuvered in position over the road. He managed to land on a busy road with substantial traffic but there was no impact and the plane and cars were undamaged. The pilot apparently coasted in with the engine off. Interview is below
What: Bangkok Airways Avion de Transport Regional ATR-72-500 en route from Koh Samui to Bangkok Where: Koh Samui When: Dec 17th 2011 Who: 38 passengers and 4 crew Why: While taxiing prior to takeoff, the pilot lost control, the plane struck an embankment and slid into a ditch.
Reports say that the pilot attempted to control the plane, but it did not respond. The flight was cancelled. Passengers were provided alternative flights.
What: Delta/Pinnacle Airlines Canadair CRJ-200 en route from Detroit,MI to Quebec Where: Quebec When: Dec 10th 2011 Who: 45 aboard Why: On approach to Quebec, the pilots received a flaps fault.
The pilots aborted the approach. After declaring emergency, the pilots reset the flap system and made a second approach, landing safely.
What: Frontier Airlines Airbus A319-100 en route from Seattle to Denver Where: Yakima When: Dec 14th 2011 Who: 138 passengers Why: While en route, the plane developed smoke in the aft galley.
Pilots diverted to Yakima, where they made a safe landing with emergency services on standby. The call came in at 9:22 a.m.and the plane landed at 9:40.
It was determined that the source of the smoke seems to have been a coffee pot or oven in the galley. A replacement jet was provided.
In George’s Point of View
The source of the problem could have been an electrical short, and the air quality may have been affected, so despite jokes about landing over kitchen equipment, the airport manager and airline management stand by the pilots decisions, which are based on correct emergency response which resulted in no deaths, no injuries.
Air India’s delinquency in payroll which earlier this year led to a strike, has led to about fifty pilots quitting.
Employees were promised incentives and raises to 30,000 employees. Currently pilots and other employees are owed a month’s salary.
Civil Aviation Minister Vayalar Ravi said ” the management of the Air India was in a constant dialogue with the unions and associations of the pilots.”
In the October strike, 100 pilots threatened to quit.
What: Delta Airlines Boeing 757-200 en route from Atlanta,GA to Seattle,WA Where: Kansas City When: Dec 15th 2011 Who: 163 aboard Why: The flight was well underway when passengers and crew smelled smoke in the cabin.
Pilots diverted to Kansas City Missouri, where they made a safe landing.
A KING 5 News employee was a passenger aboard the flight and posted on twitter that everyone was ok.
The problem was repaired, and the plane was re-boarded, continuing on to its destination.
What: Pegasus Airlines Boeing 737-800, registration TC-ASP performing flight PC-223 from Ercan Cyprus to Adana Turkey Where: Ercan When: Dec 9th 2011 11:05 Who: 75 passengers and 6 crew Why: Just ten minutes out of Ercan, over the Five Finger Mountains, the plane was struck by lightning.
Consequently, several systems malfunctioned. Pilots returned to Ercan State Airport and made a safe landing. Passengers were provided alternative flights.
Many regions in cyprus have been subjected to torrential rain and thunder.
What: UTAir/Tulpar Airlines Yakovlev Yak-42 en route from Moscow Vnukovo to Volgograd with 57 passengers and 7 crew When: Dec 10th 2011 Who: 57 passengers and 7 crew Why: While en route, the Yak developed engine problems in the left engine.
The crew shut down the engine (idled) and made a safe landing in Volgograd.
What: US Army Bell OH-58D Kiowa Warrior Where: SW training area of Joint Base Lewis-McChord When: Dec 12, 2011 Who: 2 occupants, 2 fatalities
What: US Army Bell OH-58D Kiowa Warrior Where: SW training area of Joint Base Lewis-McChord When: Dec 12, 2011 8 pm Who: 2 occupants, 2 fatalities Why: Two two-seat reconnaissance “Scout”choppers crashed during routine exercises at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, a few miles from Ranier Washington. Four individuals died in the event. Two were injured. It has not been released if the two injured were aboard, or if the choppers collided.
The remains were taken to Madigan Army Medical Center.
The debris field covered 300 meters. Military vehicles were securing the scene.
The Fort Rucker, Alabama Combat Readiness Center is coordinating the investigation, beginning with a six member team.
In the operation of the Airbus 330, a percentage of man-made decisions are taken away from humans in the cockpit. When you closely consider the Air France Airbus Flight 447 crash, it is easy to see that bad pilot decisions occurred when the pilots were not getting accurate feedback about what was happening. In old programmer lingo, this is “garbage in-garbage out.” And, unfortunately, when the data comes out of a computer, people tend to believe it, especially pilots in a falling plane, whose lives rely on that particular “garbage.”
Sure, mistakes were made. The pilot retired, leaving the cockpit to the copilots. If he had stayed in the cockpit, none of this would have happened.
Of the two remaining co-pilots, one still should have realized the other’s mistaken attitude (flying at a nose-up attitude with falling speeds.) Even something as basic as tandem cockpit control (where the flight controls move in tandem in the left and right cockpit), would have revealed to the second co-pilot what the other pilot was doing. But cockpit controls in the A330 are asymmetrical, and move independently.
If one co-pilot had caught that the junior co-pilot was flying at the nose-up attitude while the speed was dropping, none of this would have happened.
Not only did the failure of pitot tubes (the malfunctioning equipment that reads/relays airspeed) occur when they iced up, any failsafes that should have kicked in, didn’t. Thales Pitot tube icing was a known factor prior and considered by Airbus an “optional” fix. Because these tubes were frozen (iced over) airspeed data was incorrect.
If Airbus had demanded that the flawed Thales pitot tubes be replaced, the airspeed data would have been correct, and none of this would have happened.
The plane flew for a while with falling speeds, nose up. Then, the idiosyncrasy of the stall warning alarm system kicked in. When airspeed slowed too much, the warning went off, but when it slowed even more, it stopped. The pilots were in a feedback deadzone. Flying at a crawl, the warning quit. Speeding up from a crawl to slow turned set the warning off again. So when they tried to increase to the proper speed, the stall system went off.
If the stall warning system had been calibrated to go off at dangerously low speeds and keep going off until proper flight speed was attained instead of indicating to the pilots that they were wrong to increase the speed, then none of this would have happened.
It is a given that correct data and feedback are essential to a pilot. In the Airbus 330, the underlying design failed to provide accurate data and feedback. Could any pilots fly a plane if they did not know what is happening? It all comes down to a whole integration of synchronicity: a coetaneous concurrence of problems and failures converged on the pilots at once. Pilot error alone does not a crash make. Not even on an A-330.
What: Aviation Technology Innovators Beechcraft 65-80 Queen Air en route from Manila to McGuire Field, San Jose, Mindoro. Where: Parañaque City, Philippines When: Dec 10, 2011 2 p.m. Who: 3 aboard, 11 on the ground Why: The first steps after a crash are those of the investigators whose job it is to examine the wreckage and determine the facts. This information will eventually be turned into an interim and a final report, which will stand as a record. Simultaneously, the records will be examined. Not only will the pilots’ recorded histories be searched and the level of their skill examined, but also the maintenance and ownership of Beechcraft 65-80 Queen Air RP-C824
Captains Timoteo Aldo and Jessie Kim Lustica died in the crash three minutes after takeoff.
Here is a big question: Where is Captain Fidel Hembrador who leased ATI for the repair, maintenance and hangar parking services for the plane?
My first thought takes me to wondering about the condition of the plane. (Maintenance! Maintenance! Maintenance!) My second is to wonder about the pilots’ experience. My third is a strong suggestion that people refrain from rebuilding so close to the airport. However, such an edict would mean it is the government’s responsibility to see that 600 displaced people get generous government assistance in the form of grants or compensation, providing the means for displaced families to establish domiciles elsewhere.
Below is the DEC 12 release from the Department of Transportation and Communications of the Philippines:
Secretary of Transportation and Communications Mar Roxas met with CAAP [Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines] officials today, and ordered a thorough investigation of the light aircraft incident that left 14 people dead on Saturday in Barangay Don Bosco, Paranaque City.
The officials discussed the liability of the owner of the light plane and take into effect a speedy, seven-day timeline for the submission of the investigation report.
CAAP director general Ramon Gutierrez reported that he constituted the Aircraft Accident Investigation Inquiry Board (AAIIB) headed by Captain Amado Soliven, Jr. to lead the panel. The panel will investigate why and how the Beechcraft Queen Air (RPC-834) eight-seater light plane plunged into the shanty town in Paranaque City, exploding on impact, and causing a fire that gutted a 2,000-square-meter section of the slum area.
Gutierrez also told the DOTC secretary the ill-fated aircraft submitted an official flight plan to the CAAP hours before the flight under the registry of Aviation Technologies Innovators, Inc. [ATI], a repair station/maintenance and hangar provider.
But CAAP investigators revealed that the plane had a certificate of registration under one Captain Fidel Hembrador, a private operator, who reportedly leased ATI for the repair, maintenance and hangar parking services for the said plane.
Hembrador has yet to surface following the incident last Saturday.
The CAAP reported that it had retrieved and secured the engines of the plane. CAAP investigators, with the assistance of the authorized repair station of the engine manufacturer (LYCOMING), are currently breaking down the engines to determine if a mechanical malfunction had occurred.
The CAAP had commandeered the aircraft record and logbooks, as well as summary records of the training experience of the crew.
“I have tasked the fact-finding panel to come up with a report and recommendations within the week,” said Secretary Roxas. “We will make sure that all facts of this unfortunate accident are investigated, the victims are duly compensated, and make sure that similar accidents do not happen in the future.”
Roxas added that the general aviation services is one sector that the DOTC intends to relocate to another site. “The objective is to decongest NAIA from small aircraft operations, so as not to comingle with commercial airline operations.”
The CAAP had recommended two potential transfer sites, Fernando Air Base in Lipa City, Batangas and Sangley Point in Cavite.
Both military facilities are military-owned. Roxas said the DOTC and the Department of National Defense will come up with a MOA that will govern the transfer, as well as the relocation of residents who will be displaced by the move.
What: Southern Air Transport Boeing 747-200 freighter en route from Charleston,SC to Liege Belgium Where: Liege When: Dec 11th 2011 Who: 5 crew Why: On approach to Liege, the pilots encountered issues with the hydraulic systems.
The flight made a safe landing in Liege.
After allowing the Southern Air Transport flight to land, the Liege airport shut down, forcing in bound traffic to divert to other airports.
What: Pinnacle Airlines Canadair CRJ-200 on behalf of Delta Airlines en route from Louisville,KY to Minneapolis,MN (USA) Where: Minneapolis When: Dec 8th 2011 Why: While on approach to Minneapolis, the CRJ-200 underwent a flaps failure.
The pilots made efforts to correct the problems and were unsuccessful in facilitating reparations. They made a fast landing without flaps, but the landing was otherwise without incident.
What: Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-300 en route from Saint Louis,MO to Dallas Where: Saint Louis When: Dec 7th 2011 Who: 137 passengers and 5 crew Why: After takeoff, systems revealed unsafe gear.
The pilot returned to Lambert and made an emergency landing. No injuries were reported, and passengers were provided alternate flight.
What: US Airways Airbus A320-200 en route from Philadelphia,PA to Las Vegas Where: Philadelphia When: Dec 7th 2011 Why: After taking off from Philadelphia, those aboard noticed what was described as “the stench of dirty socks.” The plane returned to Philadelphia and made a safe landing. Passengers were provided an alternative flight.
Note that in spite of the uncharming description of the smell,the caution was due not to excessive fear of stinky feet but to caution over the kind of lawsuit that Boeing is dealing with right now over toxic air fumes from tricresyl phosphates (TCPs), carbon monoxide and other toxic components bleeding from faulty “bleed-air” systems. Drowsiness, disorientation and memory loss may occur as a result of exposure to aerotoxicity.
What: Delta flight en route from Kansas City to Detroit Where: Kansas City When: Dec 6, 2011 Who: 73 aboard Why: The Delta flight took off but after about twenty minutes, the flight became rocky and turbulent.
The pilots had to shut down the right engine after it lost power; then they returned to the airport to make a safe landing.
What: LAN Airlines Airbus A319-100 en route from Iquitos to Lima (Peru), Where: Lima When: Dec 5th 2011 Why: While en approach to the Lima airport, the plane lost nosewheel steering.
The flight made a safe landing but was stranded on the runway had had to be towed.
What: Qantas/Eastern Australia de Havilland Dash 8-300 en route from Cairns,QL to Weipa,QL Where: Weipa When: Dec 6th 2011 Why: On approach to Weipa, the plane flew through a cloud and encountered disruptive turbulence.
While there were no reports of injury, the turbulence resulted in engine problems. The plane made a safe landing but the incident is under ATSB scrutiny.
What: SAA South African Airways Airbus A340-300 en route from Johannesburg (South Africa) to Perth,WA Where: Perth When: Dec 6th 2011 Why: After a normal flight, on approach to Perth, the plane was struck by lightning. Subsequently, pilots reported problems and began circling the airport. They did a flyby to observe the condition of the tires which were reported as having all “indications lost.” The plane eventually landed safely.
What: Air Canada flight en route from Toronto to Beijing Where: Vancouver Who: George Campbell of Conestogo and 38-year-old Paul Alexander Wilson Why: The two, both apparently employed by RIM, (Research in Motion, the company that introduced the Blackberry in 1999), were suspended after their drunkenness aboard an Air Canada flight forced pilots to divert to Vancouver. The two alleged drunks were also held responsible in paying Air Canada over &70,000 in hotel fees and restitution for delaying the flight.
What: American Airlines flight Where: LAX When: Dec 6 2011 Who: Alex Baldwin Why: Refusing to stop playing the game “words with friends,” Alex Baldwin was ejected from an American Airlines flight by an irate flight attendant. It was waiting at the gate (not in the air.)
He was rebooked on another flight, but not without attempting twitter revenge, badmouthing American Airlines, and also filing a complaint against a flight attendant who was like a “retired Catholic school gym teacher from the 1950’s.”
Baldwin is not the only individual we heard about this week who was removed from a plane due to conduct, but the others were taken to a mental unit or released into police custody.
What: Tiara Air Aruba Shorts 360-100 en route from Las Piedras Venezuela to Aruba Where: Las Piedras When: Dec 5th 2011 Who: 29 passengers, 4 crew Why: Taking off from Las Piedras, the plane struck a donkey with its right main gear.
Pilots continued on to Aruba where they made a safe landing.
There were no injuries. Apparently the forecast for repair is better in Aruba than Las Piedras.
In George’s Point of View
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times, keep the donkeys OFF the runway.
Actually, that’s one thing I never thought I’d need to say
What: Private Socata TB21 Trinidad TC en route from Durango to Aspen Where: Silverton, CO When: Dec 3 2011 Who: 4 aboard Why: Forty minutes after leaving Durango for a Christmas party in Snowmass Village., the plane crashed into mountains near Silverton Colorado. Hampered by inclement weather, searchers had to deal with nearly a foot of snow between Saturday and Sunday in the mountains at 11,000 above sea level.
The bodies of Jenna Rich and Tyler Black were found and recovered, and are headed for autopsy.
The search continues for two more bodies. The four adult passengers have all been reported as deceased. Three of those aboard were employees of Alpine Bank, and the fourth aboard was a spouse.
The debris field of the crash covers more than a mile.
What: American Airlines Boeing 757 en route from Dallas to Los Angeles Where: Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport When: Dec 4, 2011, 10:00 a m Who: 175 aboard Why: The flight was en route when it developed problems with one of its engines. Apparently it ingested something in one of its right engines (or “encountered an unknown obstacle”) disabling the right engine.
The pilots made a safe landing in Lubbock. We assume alternative arrangements were provided for the stranded passengers.
