What: BMI Baby jet Flight WW1022en route from from Belfast
Where: Birmingham International Terminal One
When: 19 November 2008 9.30am
Who: 76 passengers and five crew members
Why: The plane declared an emergency landing due to a cracked side window.
What: Thomas Cook Airlines Flight TCX569K Airbus A320 en route from Manchester to Tenerife
Where: touched down at Manchester Airport
When: 12.15 pm Friday 7th November 2008
Who: 180 passengers on board
Why: A passenger is quoted as saying” “The captain made an announcement about the problems and the plane went silent. You could have heard a pin drop. It circled for around five minutes before landing. As soon as it did, there was a surge of chatter as everyone started talking.”
After the engine malfunctioned just after take-off, the Airbus returned to the Manchester airport. Passengers were scheduled to leave at 17.15 pm on another plane.
What: ex-military Gazelle helicopter en route from Stratford-upon-Avon to Yeovilton in Somerset. The helicopter was co-owned by Rod (Rick) Praskey and fellow flying enthusiast Christopher Evans. Christopher Evans was NOT aboard.
Where: in open grassland about 800-900 feet high – one of the highest spots in Gloucestershire, crashed in a field at Langley Hill Farm in Winchcombe, near Cheltenham.
When: Noon Nov 1
Who: Two men (both West Midland company directors) and a woman; Pilot Rod Paskey, aged 55, from Fazeley, near Tamworth director of Dekko Exclusive Gifts, Laurence Bailey an executive of Cunningham Cash Registers. The 27 year old woman’s name has not been released.
Why: poor visibility is conjectured to be part of the cause of the crash. It had been flying in heavy mist. No survivors, no cause known yet. The helicopter was described as a wreck of mangled metal. The Air Accidents Investigation Branch is investigating. Post Mortem examinations were due to be carried out Tues Nov 4
What: ex-military Gazelle helicopter en route from Stratford-upon-Avon to Yeovilton in Somerset
Where: in open grassland about 800-900 feet high – one of the highest spots in Gloucestershire, crashed in a field at a farm in Winchcombe, near Cheltenham.
When: Noon Nov 1
Who: Two men and a woman
Why: poor visibility is conjectured to be part of the cause of the crash. It had been flying in heavy mist. No survivors, no cause known yet. The helicopter was described as a wreck of mangled metal. The Air Accidents Investigation Branch is investigating.
What: two-seater de Havilland Chipmunk airplane with dual controls.
Where: Seething airfield, near Loddon, UK
When: Wednesday afternoon
Who: Media boss Ian Davies, 49 and passenger Stephen Shutt, 51. Tractor driver, Andrew Hill, was treated for shock.
Why: The plane crashed into a tractor in Norfolk. Ian Davis died on impact, Shutt taken to hospital.
What: private plane
Where: flying over the Atlantic emergency when there was a problem with one of the engines. Landing at the the Bedfordshire airport in Luton and then flew on to London on the same plane.
When: Monday
Who: Enrique Iglesias
Why:After engine trouble, the pilot shut down one of the jet’s engines, and made an emergency landing at the nearest airport.
What: two-seater Piper 38 en route from from Teesside to Durham Tees Valley Airport, near Darlington
Where: in sea off Robin Hood’s Bay near Whitby, North Sea, UK
When: Crash witnessed at 4.20 p.m. on Friday
Who: Pilot, a middle-aged man from the Ripon area, was the only fatality. He was a member of a Tees Valley flight school.
Why: Pilot sent out a Mayday distress call. Witnesses reported seeing the plane crash into the sea. A full scale search operation was in effect until the pilot’s body was found by divers at 11.45 am near rocks near the crash site and taken to Scarborough Hospital. The aircraft salvage operation is co-ordinated by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch, the coastguard and the RNLI. The plane was dismantled to facilitate transportation.
Back in mid July, we wrote about air passenger Dean Lyons trying to open the door of the Boeing 767-300 he was passenger in, en route to Cuba. Instead, the plane dropped him off in Bermuda in the guardianship of a police escort, while –due to flight crew flying time restrictions–the rest of the passengers on the flight had to wait till the next day to fly on to their destination, Varadero Cuba. On October 6, Lyons was jailed for that offense. That, and for punching a man in a Basingstoke pub.
What: Citation plane en route from Gander Airport in Newfoundland to La Bourgeois in Paris
Where: emergency landing at Shannon airport
When: Friday, 3 October 2008
Who: five people on board
Why: hydraulic problems
What: microlight which crashed at 50mph, possibly planning a short flight around the Easingwold and Thirsk
Where: taking off a grass runway at Baxby Air Sports Club, Husthwaite, near Easingwold, North Yorkshire UK
When: 1.30pm Thursday
Who: the pilot, and a passenger were both taken to York District Hospital.
Why: Unable to reach the required take-off speed on wet ground, careered througha hedge at the end of the runway into a field. Air Accidents Investigation Branch is investigating
What: Ryanair en route from Bristol, England, to Gerona, Spain
Where: central France
When: Aug 26
Who: 141 British and 27 Spanish passengers plus six crew members
Why: cabin suddenly depressurized. The plane lost 26,200 feet (8,000 meters) of altitude”Urgent landing in Limoges” 26 people were hospitalized.; 16 people “complaining of ear ache” were taken to hospital. Although Ryanair brought in a second plane to carry passengers the rest of the way, fewer than twenty of them chose non-aviation transportation.
Some passengers said the oxygen masks had not worked properly. Ryanair denies that there had been any problem with the oxygen supply except that passengers had expected a rush of gas instead of the steady stream the masks actually deliver.
“The oxygen masks were working, the correct safety procedures were followed”
The British Airways Boeing 777 crashed on Jan. 17, 2008, in icy weather with 136 travelers and 16 crew members aboard.
The reason why it crashed is that the flow of fuel to both of the plane’s engines was cut off by ice that accumulated on prior flights in cold air at high altitudes. The plane was flying at minus 29 degrees Fahrenheit over Siberia.
These are the significant just-released details behind the FAA’s move to adopt new safety rules (Pilot procedures and in-flight throttle settings) regarding planes flying in cold weather. Fuel systems might even be changed to adapt to the problem of water (which accumulates in fuel) freezing inside the fuel system.
CHINA LAKE CA–During a war games exercise, an RAF Top gun and his copilot crash landed a new $136.3 million Typhoon fighter at China Lake air base in California. The plane skidded on its belly on the runway at 130 mph.
With no wheels.
“Everything points to the pilot forgetting to lower the wheels, which does happen from time to time,” an RAF insider said.
None of the other 48 Typhoons in service has been grounded with landing gear failure.
The pilot and his copilot were unhurt.
Recently the China Lake air base area has been struck with earth quake activity.
RAF’s Typhoons are based at RAF Coningsby; the damaged jet will be returned to the UK for possible repair or salvage.
