Cause

  • | |

    Small Plane Makes Emergency Landing at Swansea Beach

    small planeA small plane flying from Swansea Airport to Popham Airfield in Basingstoke had to make an emergency landing at Jersey Marine, a beach at Swansea, Wales, UK, at around 16:00 BST on July 22.

    The plane carrying 3 people was flying at 2,000 ft when the pilot noticed that something was wrong with the engine and decided to make an emergency landing on the beach.

    No major damage was done to the plane and no one was hurt. The owner of the plane, Derek Clyde, 60, from Kidwelly said the pilot, James Hooton, did an excellent job. “He is an ex-RAF pilot and very experienced,” said Clyde.

    He also said, “We have just recovered the aircraft and the engine will be sent to the manufacturers and rebuilt in about eight weeks…The Air Accident Investigation Branch has been in touch and said it will not be investigating as it was an off-airfield landing with no damage and no injuries.”

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    AH5017 Air Algerie First reported missing. 116 Aboard in McDonnell Douglas MD-83 Crash in Niger

    On July 24, 2014, a McDonnell Douglas MD-83 leased from SwiftAir and flown for Air Algérie disappeared fifty minutes into the flight between Ouagadougou Airport and its destination in Algiers, Algeria. Pilots requested a route change request due to weather.

    The hundred and ten passengers and six Spanish crew members were aboard. Algiers is a transit point for Lebanese flying home to Beirut. Twenty Lebonese were aboard, including Fadi Rustom and Joseph Hajj from Aintoura, and Omar Ballan from Ghazir. About fifty French may be aboard also.

    The most recent report is that the plane crashed in Niger, according to Elnahar TV.

    Mali is unstable, but an airline spokesperson said unofficially “the fighters have shoulder-fired weapons which could not hit an aircraft at cruising altitude.”

    METAR Weather report:
    01:00 UTC / 01:00 local time:
    DFFD 240100Z 23008KT 9999 FEW020 BKN100 26/23 Q1015 NOSIG
    02:00 UTC / 02:00 local time:
    DFFD 240200Z 22006KT 9999 TS FEW020 FEW033CB BKN100 25/23 Q1014 TEMPO 4000 TSRA

    BtTR3FOCIAEi38D

  • | | | | | |

    Bad Weather Crash in Taiwan, after Typhoon Matmo

    mapOn July 23, 2014, a fourteen year old TransAsia Airways ATR 72-212A with a crew of four and fifty-four passengers, was making a go-around prior to landing near Magong Airport in Taiwan, and instead of landing, TransAsia Airways flight GE222 impacted buildings and the ground. GE-222 flies from Kaohsiung to Magong.
    landing

    ATC lost contact with the crew at 90 metres (300ft) above the ground. The flight was coming from Kaohsiung International Airport, Taiwan and initially suffered delays from Typhoon Matmo. Bad weather on landing led to the disastrous go-around at 7:06 p.m. The pilot had been advised to delay landing and crashed about a thousand feet shy of the runway in heavy gusting wind (47 mph) in Xixi village in the Penghu Islands, also reported as Huhsi township. There had just been ten inches of rain.

    The accident occurred after the first go-around. The pilots were on their second attempt. Two residences were damaged in the crash, and four residents injured.

    Two hundred troops, eight ambulances and two fire trucks responded to the scene.

    Typhoon-Matmo-011
    Eleven people were rescued, all suffering injuries and serious burns. One died at the hospital, and the others are in critical and serious condition. Lee Yi-liang, 60, was the pilot. His co-pilot was Chiang Kuan-hsing, 39. It has not been reported if they are among the survivors. The death toll has fluctuated since the accident was reported. It appears that of all the 58 aboard, only 11 were hospitalized, and one or more of those at the hospital have died. None survived of the 47 still in the plane though they are being reported as missing, feared dead. The injured were hospitalized at military Tri-Service General Hospital in Magong. Makung Airport was closed after the accident, forcing a number of planes to reroute or cancel.

    The Metars at the time of the crash:

    RCQC 231130Z 23019G29KT 800 + TSRA SCT002 BKN006 FEW012CB OVC016 24/23 Q0998 RMK A2948 NOSIG R20/0800N TS OVHD STNRY =
    RCQC 231110Z 25018G28KT 800 + TSRA SCT002 BKN006 FEW012CB OVC016 22/22 Q0998 RMK A2948 R20/0800 TS OVHD STNRY =
    RCQC 231100Z 22011G21KT 1600 TSRA SCT002 BKN006 FEW012CB OVC016 23/22 A2945 RMK NOSIG Q0997 RERA TS OVHD STNRY =
    RCQC 231040Z 19013G24KT 1600 TSRA SCT002 BKN006 FEW012CB OVC016 22/22 Q0996 RMK A2942 RERA TS OVHD STNRY =

    Initial reports about the crash had it confused with a four month old ATR that made a successful landing.

  • | |

    Thunderstorm Encounters

    ntsbalert

    be diligent, when in doubt-ask, make decisions about weather deviations as far in advance as possible, pay attention, give weather reports

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    Potentially unsafe situation in Crimea area lives up to potential. Statement from Maylaysia Airline, Partial Manifest, Cargo

    ICAO’s take is that the air traffic control region where the passenger plane came down was believed to be under the control of the Ukraine, and they will be pointing blame at the Ukraine for its internal strife.

    The Ukraine is saying…but the ICAO said it was safe.

    Other countries were already avoiding the hot zone. We should ask the ICAO why they were professing it was safe when it was so obviously not.
    washglasses

    Let’s all remember that greasing the wings of airline commerce does not mean greasing up the safety glasses too.

    Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Safety measures failed because of corporate optimism, cutting corners and who knows what other reasons. Prepare for the mudslinging and blame throwing to begin. Someone pulled the trigger, and someone let it happen. Someone will be held accountable.

    Now…Here is Malaysia’s Friday statement.
    Cargo manifests, hedging on the passenger manifest, and a news clip (including 25 minutes with CBS and President Obama) and a partial translation of that raw smoke video we have seen 37 times and wondered about.

    Friday, July 18, 08:20 PM GMT +0800 Media Statement 4 : MH17 Incident
    Media Statement 4: MH17 Incident

    1. Flight plan

    MH17’s flight plan was approved by Eurocontrol, who are solely responsible for determining civil aircraft flight paths over European airspace. Eurocontrol is the air navigation service provider for Europe and is governed under ICAO rules.

    The route over Ukrainian airspace where the incident occurred is commonly used for Europe to Asia flights. A flight from a different carrier was on the same route at the time of the MH17 incident, as were a number of other flights from other carriers in the days and weeks before. Eurocontrol maintains records of all flights across European airspace, including those across Ukraine.

    In April, the International Civil Aviation Organization identified an area over the Crimean peninsula as risky. At no point did MH17 fly into, or request to fly into, this area. At all times, MH17 was in airspace approved by the ICAO.

    2. Altitude

    MH17 filed a flight plan requesting to fly at 35,000ft throughout Ukrainian airspace. This is close to the ‘optimum’ altitude.

    However, an aircraft’s altitude in flight is determined by air traffic control on the ground. Upon entering Ukrainian airspace, MH17 was instructed by Ukrainian air traffic control to fly at 33,000ft.

    3. Nationalities

    Following this afternoon’s press conference, Malaysia Airlines can confirm that a further 16 passengers’ nationalities have been verified. The latest breakdown of nationalities of those on board the flight is as follows:

    · 189 Netherlands

    · 44 Malaysia

    · 27 Australia

    · 12 Indonensia

    · 9 UK

    · 4 Belgium

    · 4 Germany

    · 3 Philippines

    · 1 Canada

    · 1 New Zealand

    Four passengers’ nationalities remain to be verified.

    4. New flight route

    Following this incident, Malaysia Airlines now avoids Ukrainian airspace entirely, flying further south over Turkey.

    -end-




    And below, take a look at an update of the raw news video with translation; families in distress; speculation about the terrorist/separatists.
    Note ICAO was reportedly denying war zone warning and Ukraine was denying war, but the NOTAM warnings were ALREADY up by US, Britain and European aviation authorities.

    Missed the flight. Second Chance.

    CBS News Special Report: American on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 – 25 Minutes

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    Travelspan Flight Returns to JFK for Emergency Landing

    TravelSpanA Guyana-bound flight of Travelspan, operated by Vision Air, had to return to JFK International Airport, New York for emergency landing on the morning of July 15.

    Chief Operations Manager at Travelspan Guyana, David Goberdhan, confirmed that the plane had to return to JFK, just two and a half hours after leaving the airport, because of “compression” problems with one of its engines.

    The plane, a 767-300, landed safely and everyone aboard remained unhurt.

    The aircraft was taken for examination by the airline’s mechanical and technical teams. Another aircraft was deployed to take the passengers to Guyana.

  • | | | | | |

    MH17 Another Malaysia Airlines tragedy of infinite magnitude. Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Shot Down in Ukraine

    Bswewz1CUAEIewq
    Ukraine’s Ministry of Interior confirmed that a Malaysia Airlines plane en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed in the Ukraine near the Hrabovo village at Torez, near Shakhtersk, 25 miles from the Russia border in a location where Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian rebels have been in conflict.

    None of the 285 passengers or 15 crew is reported to have survived. It is being reported that the plane was shot down by a BUK surface-to-air missile but Ukrainian rebels deny involvement. The plane was at 33000 feet when it disappeared from radar.

    The wreckage was seen on the ground at 17.10. The plane involved was Boeing 777-200, registration 9M-MRD.

    Raw Video

    The flight plan has been released:

    (FPL-MAS17-IS
    -B772/H-SDFGHIJ3J5M1RWXY/LB1D1
    -EHAM1000
    -N0490F310 ARNEM UL620 SUVOX UZ713 OSN UL980 MOBSA DCT POVEL DCT SUI L980 UTOLU/N0490F330 L980 LDZ M70 BEMBI L980 PEKIT/N0480F350 L980 TAMAK/N0480F350 A87 TIROM/N0490F350 A87 MAMED B449 RANAH L750 ZB G201 BI DCT MURLI DCT TIGER/N0490F370 L333 KKJ L759 PUT R325 VIH A464 DAKUS DCT
    -WMKK1137 WMSA WMKP
    -EET/EDGG0017 EDWW0023 EDUU0036 EPWW0052 UKLV0135 UKBV0153 UKDV0225 URRV0255 UATT0347 UTAK0411 UTAA0432 UTAV0507 OAKX0518 OPLR0601 OPKR0616 VIDF0631 VABF0725 VECF0747 VYYF0926 VOMF0930 VTBB1013 WMFC1051 REG/9MMRD PBN/A1B1C1D1L1O1S2 SEL/QREJ DOF/140717 RMK/ACASII EQUIPPED)

    A NOTAM is a notification issued to pilots before a flight, advising them of circumstances relating to the state of flying.

    Did Malaysia not have NOTAM, like the FAA NOTAM below?

    B0447/14 (Issued for EISN PART 1 OF 2) – POTENTIALLY HAZARDOUS SITUATION UKRAINE AIRSPACE, PARTICULARLY
    OVER
    CRIMEA, THE BLACK SEA, AND THE SEA OF AZOV.

    DUE TO THE POTENTIAL FOR CONFLICTING AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL (ATC)
    INSTRUCTIONS FROM UKRAINIAN AND RUSSIAN AUTHORITIES AND FOR THE
    RELATED POTENTIAL MISIDENTIFICATION OF CIVIL AIRCRAFT, IRISH
    AIRCRAFT OPERATORS ARE STRONGLY ADVISED TO AVOID, UNTIL FURTHER
    NOTICE, THE AIRSPACE OVER CRIMEA, THE BLACK SEA, AND THE SEA OF
    AZOV, WITHIN THE FOLLOWING LATERAL LIMITS:
    454500N 0345800E-460900N 0360000E-460000N 0370000E-452700N 0364100E-
    452242N 0364100E-451824N 0363524E-451442N 0363542E-451218N 0363200E-
    450418N 0363418E-445600N 0363700E-443100N 0364000E-424400N 0361600E-
    424700N 0340000E-424800N 0304500E-434100N 0303200E-441500N 0302400E-
    444600N 0300900E-455400N 0322500E-454900N 0324700E-455400N 0330600E-
    455600N 0332700E-455900N 0332900E-THEN ALONG THE CRIMEA BORDER TO
    454500N 0345800E.

    UNILATERAL ACTION TO ESTABLISH A NEW SIMFEROPOL (URFV) FIR THAT
    INCLUDES BOTH UKRAINIAN SOVEREIGN AIRSPACE OVER THE CRIMEAN
    PENINSULA AND INTERNATIONAL HIGH SEAS AIRSPACE MANAGED BY UKRAINE
    CONTRADICTS INTERNATIONAL LAW AND ICAO ANNEX 11 STANDARDS.
    END PART 1 OF 2. 01 JUL 08:45 2014 UNTIL 01 AUG 00:01 2014. CREATED: 01 JUL
    08:56 2014
    B0447/14 (Issued for EISN PART 2 OF 2) – UKRAINE NOTAM A0528/14, PUBLISHED 28 MAR 20:14 2014, REJECTS NOTAM
    A0907/14 PUBLISHED BY THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION. UKRAINE CONTINUES TO
    PROVIDE AIR TRAFFIC SERVICES (ATS) IN THE AIRSPACE DESCRIBED IN THE
    PARAGRAPH ABOVE AND RUSSIA IS ALSO PROVIDING ATS IN THAT AIRSPACE.
    FURTHERMORE, UKRAINE NOTAM A0520/14, PUBLISHED 28 MAR 16:59 2014,
    CREATES A PROHIBITED AREA OVER THE CRIMEAN PENINSULA FOR OPERATIONS
    BELOW FL290, AND UKRAINE NOTAMS A0524/14 AND A0569/14 CLOSE VARIOUS
    ATS ROUTE SEGMENTS. RUSSIAN FEDERATION NOTAM A0912/14 REJECTS AND
    DIRECTLY CONFLICTS WITH UKRAINE NOTAMS A0520/14 AND A0524/14.
    CONSEQUENTLY, THE POTENTIAL EXISTS FOR CIVIL AIRCRAFT TO RECEIVE
    CONFUSING AND CONFLICTING ATC INSTRUCTIONS WHILE OPERATING IN THE
    DISPUTED AIRSPACE.

    OPERATIONS ARE NORMAL IN ALL OTHER UKRAINE FIRS.
    HOWEVER, IRISH OPERATORS FLYING INTO, OUT OF, OR WITHIN LVOV (UKLV),
    KYIV (UKBV), DNEPTROPETROVSK (UKDV), AND ODESSA (UKOV) FIRS, AS WELL
    AS AIRSPACE IN SIMFEROPOL (UKFV) FIR THAT IS OUTSIDE THE LATERAL
    LIMITS OF THE AIRSPACE OVER CRIMEA, THE BLACK SEA, THE SEA OF AZOV
    DESCRIBED IN THE FIRST PARAGRAPH OF THIS NOTAM, SHOULD REVIEW
    CURRENT SECURITY/THREAT INFORMATION AND NOTAMS.

    THE CONTENT OF THIS NOTAM SAFETY WILL BE RE-EVALUATED BY 30 JUN 2014.
    END PART 2 OF 2. 01 JUL 08:45 2014 UNTIL 01 AUG 00:01 2014. CREATED: 01 JUL
    08:56 2014

    Malaysia Airlines Media Statement:


    Media Statement : MH17 Incident

    Released at 12:30am/18 July 2014

    Malaysia Airlines confirms it received notification from Ukrainian ATC that it had lost contact with flight MH17 at 1415 (GMT) at 30km from Tamak waypoint, approximately 50km from the Russia-Ukraine border.

    Flight MH17 operated on a Boeing 777 departed Amsterdam at 12.15pm (Amsterdam local time) and was estimated to arrive at Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 6.10 am (Malaysia local time) the next day.

    The flight was carrying 280 passengers and 15 crew onboard.

    More details to follow.

    -end-

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    South African Airbus Turbulence Injures 28 over #Malaysia

    southafricanairwaysSouth African Airways Flight SA286, an Airbus A340-313X, was en route from OR Tambo International Airport in Kempton Park, Ekurhuleni, Gauteng, South Africa, near the city of Johannesburg to Hong Kong International Airport when it encountered severe turbulence four hours from Hong Kong while over Malaysia. The plane suffered cabin damage.

    Three crew and twenty-five passengers were tossed out of their seats and into the ceiling. THere were 163 passengers aboard. Fourteen ambulances waited at Chek Lap Kok airport to transport the injured to North Lantau Hospital, Princess Margaret Hospital and Yan Chai Hospital. Two people are still hospitalized.

    Pilots continued to Hong Kong and made a priority landing.
    injured
    The injured were taken off the plane and hospitalized.

    Malaysian authorities will be assisting the Civil Aviation Department in the investigation.

    *A priority landing means that the incident leads to the aircraft being given landing priority by the airport where it is about to land.

  • |

    Australian Pilot Develops ‘GO Light’ System to Mitigate Spatial Disorientation

    CockpitAn Australian pilot, Russell Crane, has invented a Green Orientation Light (GO Light) system, which can help solve the spatial disorientation problem.

    “Presently, to verify orientation when there are no visual cues, the pilot has to focus on their small attitude indicator (AI) instrument… However, this verification requires the pilot firstly to recognise that they may be disorientated and actively focus their attention on the AI,” Crane said in a statement.

    However, the GO Light system will provide a constant reference point to the horizon in the pilot’s peripheral vision, which will continually keep him informed about the plane’s altitude. According to Crane, this will not only mitigate the issue of unrecognized spatial disorientation, but will also allow pilots to focus more on other instruments while being confident and aware about the plane’s altitude and orientation.

    Ron Bartsch, the Chairman of AvLaw International said, “GO Light takes the concept of the AI and turns it into a constant part of the pilot’s subconscious perception. If this concept can be taken forward and commercialised, it could be the most important Australian aviation invention since the black box.”

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    Bird Forces Private Jet to make Emergency Landing at Dulles

    HawkerA private Hawker 800 jet made an emergency landing at runway 19-R of Washington Dulles International Airport in Sterling, Virginia, shortly before 12:30 pm on July 14.

    As per officials of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA), the pilot declared emergency after a bird hit and damaged the aircraft.

    The plane landed safely but had to be towed off to the hanger due to damage to its under carriage and loss of hydraulic fluid.

    There were 2 people aboard at the time of accident; none of them was injured.

    The fire crews responded at the runway as a precaution step.

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    Update on United 777 Diversion to Henderson Field Airport Midway Atoll.

    midwayatoll

    United Airlines revealed what went wrong on Flight 201.

    A problem with the equipment supply cooling fan on board the Boeing 777 caused the problems which required the pilots to divert to Midway to land there in the dark. The passengers waited in a gym until the replacement flight arrived.

    The plane that flew in to Midway to pick up the passengers also brought parts and a repair crew. The plane with the bad fan was fixed, and returned from Midway Island back to San Francisco.

    In fact, it was returned to service.

    Now we’d like to hear about the passengers getting their luggage back.

    Read More

  • | |

    Small Crash Kills 4 in Russia

    On July 13, 2014, around 18:00 Moscow time, a Yakovlev Yak-18T crashed in Ryazan, Russia six miles from Spassk killing four.

    Initially, police reported three dead: the pilot and two passengers.

    However the names have been released, and there were four aboard. The report said that a local resident engaged the plane in agricultural work.

    The pilot, who owned the plane and was flying, was Edward Rustamyan, born in 1958.

    Passengers were Valery Baranov, born in 1968, resident of Ryazan, Karen Harutyunyan, a resident of Ryazan, born in 1981.The third passenger was Armenian, Tigran Adamyan, who arrived in the Ryazan this May.

  • | | | | | | | | |

    Air India Emergency Bird Strike in Newark NJ

    duck77An Air India Boeing 777 en route from Newark to Mumbai had 292 passengers and 21 crew aboard when it took off at 4:36 in the afternoon. Witnesses saw flames shooting from the left engine when flight 144 took off.

    Pilots reported problems with the left engine, and twenty-two minutes after taking off, returned to land in Newark.

    The landing must have been pretty hard, because tires were blown. The airport’s New Jersey spokeswoman Erica Dumas described it as a “rough landing.” Also, the left engine problems were attributed to a bird strike.

    Passengers disembarked and were provided hotel accommodations while they rebooked.

    *No ducks were injured in the photoshopping of this B777 windowseat snapshot.

  • | | | | | |

    United 777 Diverts to Remote Pacific Island

    midwayatoll

    On July 11, 2014, United Airlines flight 201, a Boeing 777-222 was four hours on the ground before the flight, with passengers waiting as some technical problem on the plane was worked out. Departure time of this flight is recorded as 18:16 but it is normally around 14:30. Then when the flight was enroute from Honolulu to Guam, the plane developed fire, haze or smoke in the cockpit. Pilots made an emergency landing at Midway Islands after Radar and Radio Comms were lost but the transponder continued working. Passenger luggage is still stuck on the tiny runway at Henderson Field Airport Midway Atoll.

    The incident was unannunciated, which means that it had no alert, and the crew had to sense it (i.e. see/smell) but while underway, a smoke alarm was triggered.

    None of the 335 passengers or 13 crew sustained injury.

    According to flightaware, United Airlines flew in a replacement B777 which landed 5 1/2 hours later, spent an hour on the ground and brought the passengers back to Honolulu.

  • | | |

    S7 Airline Fender Bender cancels flight

    An S7 Airlines Boeing 737 that was scheduled to fly from Moscow to Ekaterinburg, Russia, was on the ground packed with passengers ready to go when a truck collided with the fuselage.

    Thanks to the damage, the flight was cancelled.

    Passengers exited on to the tarmac.

    We caught the image below on twitter.

    BsSEaJWIAAAF5OO

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    Corsica Crash site of Lost Plane, Three Fatalities

    cime

    A single engine plane en route from Calvi to Terni Italy crashed in the mountains of Cime de Muzzicone fifteen minutes after take-off.

    The three people aboard died on impact.

    Their bodies were found after a search in the area of Cime Muzella, where the single-engine aircraft disappeared from radar screens on Jule 12.

    The wreckage was found around 4000 ft, in the mountains after a search that was hampered by the same bad weather conditions that may have been responsible for the crash. The names of the fatalities have not been released.

  • | | | |

    Mexico Cessna Sport Fishing Hop has at least four fatalities

    mexicocrash

    On July 10, a Cessna 206 en route from Tamaulipas to Veracruz with seven aboard crashed in eastern Mexico has killed four people and injured two. The fall of the plane did not affect the residents of the town. No cause has been reported for the plane failure.

    The pilot reported engine failure at 22:18 to Veracruz ATC around the time the plane disappeared from radar..

    The wreckage is being recovered at Rancho Coralillos in the town of Alto Lucero. The remains of four people were found aboard the plane. (Number varies.) Two injured have been named as Sergio Rage Marrón and Jorge Arturo Velázquez Amorringa.

    The number of fatalities has been raised to five. The bodies inside the plane were burned, and difficult to identify.

    The injured were taken to a private hospital in Veracruz.

    The passengers had been going to a sport fishing competition.
    mexicocrash2

    The Secretary of Civil Protection and the Municipal Civil Protection and a navy Mi17 helicopter responded to the scene.

  • | | |

    Mooney Crashes Home Near Golf Course

    planecrash
    A privately owned Mooney M20M TLS crashed into two homes in Greenwood at 2:19 p.m. on Patterson Street across from the Valle Vista Golf Course.

    The pilot was the only fatality. The co-pilot was taken to IU Health Methodist Hospital in critical condition.

    Two people were aboard.

    At least three were injured in the accident. Two people on the ground sustained injury.

    Two homes in the first block of Patterson Street were damaged after the plane lost power during takeoff.

  • | | | | |

    TAP Diverts to Paris with Air Conditioning Emergency That Sets off Warning Bell

    bellA TAP Air Portugal Airbus A320-214 was en route from Lisbon, Portugal to Amsterdam when it developed a problem with the air conditioning.

    Pilots made an emergency landing in Paris at Orly airport.

    None of the 72 passengers was injured.

    However, an online twitter post assumed that the problem was an engine fire because an engine bell was heard during radio transmissions to ATC. There was no fire.

  • | | | | |

    #Delta Emergency Landing in Knoxville TN

    A Delta McDonnell Douglas MD-88 en route from Orlando to Cincinnati made an emergency landing in Knoxville after pilots reported smoke coming from the plane.

    The five crew and all the passengers put on oxygen masks but removed them on landing as a ground crew inspected the outside of the plane. Emergency services did not see smoke or fire.

    The unplanned landing was uneventful. A replacement flight was provided for to accommodate 52 passengers. There were no injuries, but there was a discrepancy of the number of people reported aboard.

  • | | | |

    FAA Receives Unleaded Fuels Proposals in Safe Fuel Initiative

    vintageFAA Receives Unleaded Fuels Proposals

    The Federal Aviation Administration announced today it has received ten replacement fuel proposals from producers Afton Chemical Company, Avgas LLC, Shell, Swift Fuels and a consortium of BP, TOTAL and Hjelmco, for further evaluation in the Piston Aviation Fuels Initiative (PAFI). The industry-government initiative is designed to help the general aviation industry transition to an unleaded aviation gasoline. The FAA will be assessing the viability of the candidate fuels to determine which fuels may be part of the first phase of laboratory testing at the FAA’s William J. Hughes Technical Center.

    The goal is to have a new unleaded fuel by 2018.

    “We’re committed to getting harmful lead out of general aviation fuel,” said Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. “This work will benefit the environment and provide a safe and available fuel for our general aviation community.”

    The 167,000 general aviation aircraft in the US that rely on 100 low lead aviation gasoline for safe operation are running on the only remaining transportation fuel in the United States that contains the addition of lead.

    Commercial planes have never used leaded gas.

    Congress authorized $6 million for the fiscal year 2014 budget to support the PAFI test program at the FAA Technical Center. PAFI was established to facilitate the development and deployment of a new unleaded aviation gasoline with the least impact on the existing piston-engine aircraft fleet.

    The FAA asked fuel producers on June 10, 2013 to submit proposals for replacement fuels by July 1, 2014. The goal is to identify, select, and provide fleetwide certification for fuels determined to have the lowest impact on the general aviation fleet.

    The FAA will analyze the candidate fuels in terms of their impact on the existing fleet, the production and distribution infrastructure, their impact on the environment, their toxicology and the cost of aircraft operations.

  • | | | | |

    Birdstrike Cause of USAF Crash

    A bird strike on the HH-60G Pave Hawk at 110ft at 126mph caused the crash of a helicopter on a moonlight training mission on the Norfolk Wildlife Trust reserve, killing staff Sgt Afton Ponce, Capt Christopher Stover, Technical Sgt Dale Matthews and Capt Sean Ruane.

    The crew was confirmed dead at the scene. The investigation has begun, and there is a fund opened for them.

    A number of twelve pound geese struck the helicopter after the flock flew up alarmed by the noise.

    The USAF chopper was flying out of Lakenheath in Suffolk.

  • | | | | | |

    #Rescue: Three Men in a Boat

    seaexpressiiAfter the cargo ship they were in was forced to make an emergency landing, three Miamians were found floating in a boat in the Bahamas, fifteen miles from Bimini.

    Pilot Ernie Martin had to land the Cessna 337 on the water when both engines lost fuel. He sustained a small cut that did not require hospitalization.

    Passengers Daniel Puig and Javier Avino were aboard after a vacation in Great Harbor Key. Puig credits his seat belt for keeping him from going through the windshield.

    All three were rescued by the Sea Express II, a Seacor Island Lines’ cargo ship.

  • | | | | |

    Crash Helicopter Crashes Killing 19 in Flames in Vietnam

    vietnamcrash
    A helicopter exercise in Vietnam killed 19 of 21 people aboard on July 7, 2014 at 7:50 a.m.

    Vietnam People’s Army Air Force (VPAAF), Regiment 91 suffered a loss of 19 when the Mil Mi-171 helicopter engaged in a parachute training mission crashed near village 11 in Thach That district, Vietnam, managing to impact a field instead of the residences.

    The helicopter was flying out of Hoa Lac military Airport with sixteen parachute recruits aboard.

    Two people survived the crash, with injuries. Five people had survived the crash with burn injuries, but three of them lost their lives at the hospital.