| | |

Knik Glacier Rescue Update

What: Black Hawk rescue helicopter
Where: Knik Glacier Alaska
Why: Attempting to rescue the five stranded on a glacier since Sunday afternoon, a Black Hawk rescue helicopter was damaged sliding and rolling on the glacier. The Air National Guard helicopter was forced to turn around.

It took a day for the pararescue team (which arrived yesterday) to ski the three miles to the survivors with two days worth of supplies. More supplies have been dropped.

Tuesday night, two of the original left stranded and one rescuer were flown to Palmer.

More on Knik Glacier Rescue

To include the featured image in your Twitter Card, please tap or click their icon a second time.

Similar Posts

  • | | | | | |

    US$5,850 to Crash Victims

    What: Merpati Nusantara Xian MA-60 en route from Sorong to Kaimana
    Where: Kaimana, West Papua
    When: May 7, 2010 12:21 pm
    Who: 21 passengers (including 2 children and a baby), 4 crew, 2 technicians
    Why: After flying a holding pattern for a quarter of an hour, the plane was on its final approach when it crashed in shallow water .3 miles before it reached the runway. On impact with the water, the plane broke in two and sank, with the passengers trapped within. Officials say bad weather and low visibility (6,600 ft) are responsible for the crash.


    Crash victims are being paid Rp 50 million (US$5,850) by State insurance firm PT Jasa Raharja, according to published reports. The total is 1.35 billion Rp. Reports do not say if this is an interim payment.

    To include the featured image in your Twitter Card, please tap or click their icon a second time.
  • |

    Airbus Engine Pulled from Hudson

    Reuters provides a video of the Airbus 320’s submerged left engine being pulled from the Hudson river.

    The Airbus 320A jet has been moved from Battery Park City to Weeks Marina in Jersey City.

    The flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder have been recovered and the contents are being studied to determine details about what caused Flight 1549’s two engines to quit.

    To include the featured image in your Twitter Card, please tap or click their icon a second time.
  • |

    No Charges for Woman for Diverting Plane


    Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
    Contact photographer Giovanni Verbeeck

    What: US Airways B767 from Paris to Charlotte
    Where: Bangor Maine
    When: May 22, 2012
    Who: 179 passengers, 9 crew
    Why: Around noon on May 22, two F-15 fighter jets scrambled to intercept a US Airways plane where a French woman from Cameroon had handed a note to a flight attendant claiming that she had a surgically implanted bomb. She was traveling alone and had no baggage.

    Update US attorneys told the court they would not be filing a criminal complaint against Marigot 41-year-old French citizen and native of Cameroon,Lucie Zeeko Marigot, appeared in federal court in Bangor. Marigot was described by other passengers as “a full-figured, light-skinned African woman with hair “almost down to her waist.”

    The note she handed to a flight attendant said in French that she was “a victim of a group of doctors” and that she had “an object in her body that is out of my control” and she also handed her a book she had written about her personal story.
    Read More Passenger Claims Bomb Implant

    To include the featured image in your Twitter Card, please tap or click their icon a second time.
  • | | | | | | |

    NY: Hudson River Crash Update


    Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
    Contact Photographer Tom Turner

    What: Piper PA-32 registered to LCA Partnership in Fort Washington, Pa flying out of Teteboro Airport to Ocean City and a Liberty Helicopter Sightseeing Tour Eurocopter AS 350
    Where: over the Hudson River between New York and Hoboken, New Jersey near West 14th Street
    When: Sat Aug 8 2009
    Who: Helicopter: 5 Italian tourists and a pilot;
    plane: pilot and 2 passengers (including a child)
    Why: The airplane flew into the helicopter. The impact (or rotors) severed off the plane’s wing. Both aircrafts are in the river. The helicopter is reported to have “dropped like a rock” when the aircrafts “clipped.”

    All bodies have been recovered.

    Though not necessarily considered directly responsible, two FAA employees (the plane’s air traffic controller and the ATC supervisor) have been put on administrative leave in connection with this crash. The ATC was engaged in inappropriate conversation, and the supervisor was not in the room as required.

    To include the featured image in your Twitter Card, please tap or click their icon a second time.
  • | | | |

    Revisiting Ethiopia Flight 409

    We’ve been studying Ethiopia Flight 409 for a while, and now that the official investigation Progress Report is out, we have looked at it with quite some interest. The 28 page report is attached as a pdf at the end of this editorial, so if you haven’t seen it yet, we have it handy–

    In some places, we find that the report corroborates some of the the points we made (or discovered in our research.)

    According to the report:

    “Instruments meteorological conditions prevailed for the flight, and the flight was on an instrument flight plan. The accident occurred at night in dark lighting conditions with reported isolated cumulonimbus clouds and thunderstorms in the area.”

    Their report also states:
    The Lebanese Civil Aviation Authority reviewed the data from the Lebanese Meteorological Services that was collected on 25 January, 2010 after the accident. Meteorological data revealed some significant meteorological conditions in the area at the time of the accident. Relevant meteorological documents are included in the investigation file and will be analyzed during the investigation.

    1.7.1 General meteorological situation
    At the time of the accident, there was thunderstorms activity southwest and west of the field, as well as to the northwest on the localizer path for runway 16.

    We had found a satellite photo of the area at the time in question and found something more turbulent than isolated cumulonumbus clouds. Here are the details we turned up
    (thanks to Prof. Robert H. Holzworth
    Departments of Earth and Space Sciences, and Physics
    Director, World Wide Lightning Location Network )

    WWLLN lightning strokes between (45,35.2) and (33.6, 35.7) coordinates on25 Jan 2010 between 00 and 06 UTC
    .
    2010/01/25,00:26:01.675091, 33.7925,  35.3157, 18.6, 15 2010/01/25,00:32:36.535404, 33.6762,  35.3223,  2.6,  5 2010/01/25,00:35:33.147928, 33.8152,  35.3989, 17.1,  9 2010/01/25,00:36:46.386409, 33.7880,  35.4182,  6.3,  6 2010/01/25,00:37:57.880969, 33.7473,  35.4083, 12.9,  8 2010/01/25,00:38:56.307703, 33.8144,  35.4480,  6.7,  5 2010/01/25,00:39:52.170965, 33.8098,  35.4486, 22.5, 1 02010/01/25,00:47:07.877656, 33.7658,  35.5138, 16.3,  7 2010/01/25,00:47:08.129640, 33.7532,  35.5187,  6.8,  5 2010/01/25,00:51:28.917459, 33.7313,  35.4897, 15.8,  8 2010/01/25,00:57:16.994854, 33.7712,  35.5668,  6.2,  5 2010/01/25,00:57:17.172976, 33.8877,  35.6009,  3.1,  5 2010/01/25,00:57:16.970924, 33.8230,  35.5664,  9.2,  5 2010/01/25,01:05:02.878083, 33.6379,  35.5348, 10.9,  5 2010/01/25,02:58:51.961652, 33.6073,  35.3703,  2.3,  5 2010/01/25,03:00:31.235850, 33.6450,  35.3881,  5.8,  7 2010/01/25,03:02:45.342786, 33.6157,  35.3553,  4.5,  7 2010/01/25,03:30:07.101084, 33.6511,  35.3185, 17.5,  7 2010/01/25,04:06:25.411422, 33.8432,  35.3648, 10.9,  5 2010/01/25,04:07:31.723296, 33.9087,  35.3844,  7.0,  5 2010/01/25,04:13:12.295902, 33.9543,  35.4151, 17.0, 10 2010/01/25,04:29:17.203911, 33.9865,  35.4613, 20.7, 10 2010/01/25,04:33:22.703869, 33.9637,  35.3229,  7.6,  6 2010/01/25,04:35:07.805894, 33.8709,  35.3297, 13.3,  8 2010/01/25,04:46:45.611497, 33.9634,  35.4145, 12.9,  6 2010/01/25,05:19:51.913652, 33.6442,  35.4520, 19.5,  8 2010/01/25,05:35:10.788571, 33.9139,  35.2087,  9.5,  7 2010/01/25,05:56:25.149281, 33.6332,  35.6535, 14.0,  7

    and the satellite photo:

    The plane’s on board radar would have normally registered this unacceptable massive super cell in the area where the airplane hit the ocean and the pilot would have adjusted the flight path accordingly. This makes us question if the on board radar was intact and operable. The weather system pictured in the satellite photo is not weather a pilot would voluntarily fly into. So we were not surprised to see this included in the report:

    1.17.1.6 Procedure for use of on-board Weather Radar
    ET provided its SOP and Boeing procedure for the operation of the weather radar during departure. The procedure will be addressed during the analysis phase.

    OTHER POINTS
    Our investigation pointed out that when an aircraft fails, it is a crucial part of the research to look at timely Airworthiness Directives (issued before and after) on the type of plane involved and indeed, this has become part of the ongoing research:

    1.16.4.1 Removal and Analysis of the Trim Tab section:
    ADs were issued (Emergency AD, AD 2010-09-05, AD 2010-17-19) by the FAA respectively on March and August 2010 regarding trim tab control mechanism and this airplane (with serial number 29935) was found affected by these ADs.
    Therefore, and in accordance with the Airworthiness Group recommendation, the Investigation Committee decided the removal of the trim tab control mechanism for further test and research.

    This is not the final report. The final report is due out this summer. We are looking forward to seeing if it answers some of our questions.

    The Official Report

    To include the featured image in your Twitter Card, please tap or click their icon a second time.
  • | | |

    Rescue Pilot Rescued by Rescuees

    After a boat rescue failed, on January 9, 2013, a Bell 206 Jet Ranger with only the pilot aboard was rescuing two Nunavut seal hunters, Joe Karetak, who is in his 50s, and his 20-year-old son, who were stranded off the west shore of Hudson Bay. The brutal wind chill was -50 C.

    The helicopter was from Customs Helicopter in Gillam Manitoba.

    The hunters had left on snow mobiles but hadn’t returned home, initiating the search.

    The helicopter landed safely but broke through the ice—it was partially on ice, partially in the water 100 meters from the hunters.

    The pilot was rescued by the hunters.

    A second helicopter assisting in the original rescue took the hunters and the pilot to Arviat. The rescue was coordinated by the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre.

    To include the featured image in your Twitter Card, please tap or click their icon a second time.