The Boeing 737-800 plane took off for Kunming, China, but had to return shortly afterwards due to a bird strike that damaged a pitot tube.

The plane landed uneventfully after burning off excess fuel. All passengers and crew members remained safe.

The airline arranged a replacement plane for the passengers.

The post Fuzhou Airlines Flight Makes Emergency Landing in Fuzhou, China first appeared on George Hatcher's Air Flight Disaster.

With assistance from ATC, the pilots made a safe landing.

The post BA Instrument Failure over Calgary first appeared on George Hatcher's Air Flight Disaster.

The National Transportation Safety Board’s decision on the Colgan Air Flight 407 crash is that the pilot responded inappropriately to the stick shaker, which led to an aerodynamic stall from which the airplane did not recover. The stick shaker only comes into play when the plane is already slow enough to stall. The plane fell 800 feet before crashing pointing northeast, away from the airport

The family of Ellyce Kausner has filed a lawsuit against Bombardier. Bombardier is the manufacturer of the plane involved in the crash. The suit charges that Bombardier was “negligent and careless” in the design of the plane by not providing more efficient internal mechanical warning systems.

Kausner was a 24 year old Jacksonville law student traveling to NY to visit family.

At least 19 other families have filed suits.

At the time of the crash, the automated “stick-pusher,” pushes the control column down in order to send the aircraft into a temporary dive so it can regain speed and recover from a stall but Capt. Renslow yanked back on the controls while adding thrust, manually overriding the stick-pusher.

Colgan Air, Clarence Center, NY, Accident Dockets

George’s Point of View

Time for Bombardier to step up to the plate. Although this has little to do with the pilot, who had flunked numerous flight tests during his career and was never adequately taught how to respond to the emergency that led to the airplane’s fatal descent. Maybe Ellyce would still be here if the warning systems on the Bombardier were simply better.

When the plane slowed down to a dangerous level, it set off the stall-prevention system, and the pilot performed the opposite of the proper procedure. So there were hiring and training issues involved too. And Captain Renslow had about 109 hours of experience, hardly enough to be pilot.

Even if procedures seem counter-intuitive, shouldn’t the pilot be aware of them?

Barring the inefficiency of an ill-prepared pilot, shouldn’t Bombardier have some kind of way to limit ineffective pilot responses?

When the hiring and training fails, and when the pilot fails, shouldn’t there be some kind of fail-safe within the plane? Even a copy of the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Not Crashing your Bombardier for pilots who flunked their last check write 16 months before and who apparently didn’t read the real manual?

The post Family Charges Bombardier with Negligence first appeared on George Hatcher's Air Flight Disaster.

What: Wideroe de Havilland Dash 8-100 en route from Sogndal to Forde
Where: Bergen
When: Mar 2nd 2010
Who: 16 passengers and 3 crew
Why: While on route, the pitot heating system failed. The resulting nreliable airspeed indications convinced the crew to divert to Bergen, where they made a safe landing.

Offhand, I think this may be the first that I recall pitot tube issues on a de Havilland Dash 8-100. I wonder if these were thales tubes; and I wonder if airspeed can not be better determined with a more robust methodology. If I were a manufacturer, I would certainly have my engineers thinking about developing alternative technologies to bring to market.

The post Pitot Diverts Dash 8 to Bergan first appeared on George Hatcher's Air Flight Disaster.

What: Northwest Airlines Airbus A330-300 en route from Hong Kong China to Tokyo Narita Japan
Where: East China Sea
When: Jun 23rd 2009
Who: n/a
Why: The crew noted a sharp drop in outside temperature, then lost the air data reference system. The autopilot and autothrust system disconnected. This was followed by loss of speed and altitude data. Using standby systems, the crew managed to restore data stream and landed safely in Narita.

George’s Point of View

This looks suspiciously like what happened to Airbus Flight 447…Let’s see what the NTSB says.

The post Airbus Failure Again…Over the China Sea first appeared on George Hatcher's Air Flight Disaster.

Mechanics found the problem. A bee had flown into one of the plane’s air speed sensors (pitot tube).

George’s Point of View

A good thing that the pilot was able to land the plane and discover the problem.

The post Unreliable Airspeed: Blame it on the Bee first appeared on George Hatcher's Air Flight Disaster.

What: TAM Linhas Aereas Airbus A330-200 en route from Miami, FL to Sao Paulo Brazil
Where: en route to Sao Paulo
When: May 21st 2009
Who: not listed
Why: While in flight, the flight crew observed a drop of the outside temperature and recorded seeing St. Elmo’s Fire. They lost the air data reference system. Autopilot and autothrust system disconnected, and fly by wire switched to alternate law (and remained in alternate law for the remainder of the flight.)

Rudder travel limiter was deactived and airspeed and altitude indication was lost.

Standby instrumentation allowed data restoration in under ten minutes.

George’s Point of View

The post TAM Linhas Aereas Airbus loses Airspeed, Data first appeared on George Hatcher's Air Flight Disaster.

What: Birgenair Boeing 757-200 en route from Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic to Frankfurt Germany
Where: Puerto Plata
When: February 6th 1996
Who: 176 passengers 13 crew
Why: The plane had been parked for a month in Puerto Plata. After takeoff, disagreeing airspeeds resulted in simultaneous stall and overspeed warnings that precipitated a crash that killed 176 passengers and 13 crew fifteen minutes after takeoff.

A black and yellow mud dauber wasp was found lodged in the tube.

George’s Point of View

The post Birgenair: Historical Fatality first appeared on George Hatcher's Air Flight Disaster.