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Crabtree Accident Preliminary Investigation Out

What: RV6 two-seat airplane
Where: Crabtree
When: Nov 26, 2012
Who: 2 aboard
Why: The preliminary report on the Nov 26 crash of a 2 seat kit plane says a witness saw one wing fold upward during a turn, and the wing apparently hit the canopy, shattering its glass.

A wing was lost in flight and found thousands of feet from the location of the wreckage.

Aircraft owner Timothy Dean Carter of Portland and commercial pilot Jeff Earl Kropf of Halsey were killed in the crash.

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Continuing Search for Sukhoi Superjet Wreckage Indicates Probable Black Box Location Buried Under Debris

What: Sukhoi Superjet 100-95 en route from Jakarta to Jakarta Halim Perdanakusuma Airport
Where: Indonesia
When: May 9th 2012
Who: 36 passengers, 6 crew and 2 Sukhoi official
Why: Indonesian special police found the engines, running gear of the SSJ-100, and located (but have not retrieved) the black boxes. The Sukhoi cockpit design is similar to Airbus, with fly by wire technology and a “joystick.”

The Flight Data recorder is believed to be at a depth of 500 meters under rock and debris on the rockface, making the recovery tricky.

No answers have been found why the pilots requested to descend to 6,000 feet from an altitude of 10,000 feet, while flying above a 6000+ mountain in heavy cloud cover. The pilot was an experienced pilot but had not flown in this area and may not have been intimately familiar with the topography. Was he planning on buzzing the peaks, or was the plane in trouble? The black boxes will contain the answer.

Transaero Flies with Lost Engine Panel
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Transaero Flies with Lost Engine Panel

What: Transaero en route from Moscow to Krasnoyarsk
Where: Moscow
When: March 26, 2012
Why: The Transaero flight was not yet underway but passengers were on board when it was discovered that there was an inspection panel missing from the engine.

The flight was delayed as passengers disembarked. After a couple of hours, the flight took off without the inspection panel. The missing panel was misreported as a hole in the engine.