What: HeliTeam Eurocopter AS350 en route from Harstad to Alta.
Where: near the Swedish border.
When: Wednesday
Who: One person killed, one injured. It is unclear from our sources which was the pilot.
Why: The crash occurred during heavy snow showers so weather may have been a factor.
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Ryanair Boeing 737 8AS (WL) en route from Moss-Rygge to London-Stansted had taken off. The crew found a technical problem, and decided to land. Initially they were going to land in Bergen, but instead they returned to the airport of origin.
Initially, passengers were very calm. They were less calm when they were not told about the change from landing in Bergen until two minutes before they were safe on the ground at Moss-Rygge,
The flight was in the air about thirty minutes.
A TAME Airlines plane skidded off runway at Cuenca Airport, Ecuador, on April 28th.
The plane, performing flight EQ-173 from Quito, Ecuador, landed amid heavy rain and slided off the tarmac onto the grass.
There were 87 passengers and 6 crew members aboard at the time; none of them were injured.
The aircraft was substantially damaged.
Four people are missing after a helicopter crashed into the Dordogne river.
The helicopter fell into the waters of the Dordogne, by the commune of Lugon-and-l ‘ île-du-Carnay, bordering the River, where is located the castle of île-du-Carnay.
Divers were searching the waters of the Dordogne while police swarmed the banks at the port of Petit Chartron. At midnight Friday, an unidentified corpse was recovered in the wreckage of the helicopter. The search for the other three missing was suspended at 11:30 and will resume Saturday morning at 8:00 a.m..
Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
Contact photographer Egor Naumenko
Today I read an article saying that the SuperJet that crashed on a promotional flight boils down to one question: pilot or plane? I have to disagree. It is not that simple. It takes a lot of coordinating systems to get a plane in the air, and it usually takes more than one error to take a plane down.
If there is a problem with the plane, it is most likely the investigation will reveal it, and anything that comes out before the investigation is just speculation. (How much of the investigation will be made public often depends on the transparency policies of government, however.) So I am speculating here.
Russian Aviation does have a lot riding on the success of this entry into the global aviation marketplace so we know it’s not a paper airplane they folded together in ten seconds or as many months. We suspect that the quality of the teams performing the design, construction, training and troubleshooting that went into the jet’s creation is about par for contemporary jet design. Which is to say the teams are probably very good. The plane has fly-by-wire technology but Sukhoi consults with Boeing on a “step-by-step project management … fully explored and translated into business reality by SCAC.”
There are a number of problems that are coming to light with this flight.
Sometimes investigations take the easy path and just blame the pilot. I’ve seen happen a hundred times before, when the pilot was blamed simply because he was not longer able to defend his actions. And while pilots are only human, and sometimes do make mistakes, sometimes those mistakes are caused by corporate pressures, pressure to meet deadlines, fuel quotas, scheduling, etc. What is pressure of corporate expectations on a joy flight pilot? Do we know if he was under orders to showcase the plane’s agility, possibly even to make the very move that crashed the plane?
The pilot, 57 year old Alexander Yablontzev was experienced. He was Sukhoi’s chief test pilot and had spent more than 14 thousand hours flying. After retiring as Lieutenant Colonel from the Russian Air Force, he flew for Transaero and had a lot of hours. But the fatal flight was his first time flying in Indonesia. Did the crash occur because he was flying a strange, possibly wrongly mapped terrain, and recklessly “buzzing” the peak of Mount Salak to show off the plane’s versatility?
No answers here. I’m just saying that the question is not so simply put.
What: Beech A-30 Bonanza en route from Asheville Regional Airport
Where: crashed into Kenmure subdivision, a gated golf community
When: September 10, 2009
Who: 1 fatality: pilot Larry Youngblood
Why: In foggy conditions, the plane apparently hit several trees, and landed between two house with its wings torn off. The NTSB is investigating.
What: CHC (for Total) Helicopter Eurocopter EC225 Super Puma en route from Aberdeen to West Phoenix drilling rig
Where: 32 miles south of Shetland, off Fair Isle
When: October 22, 2012
Who: 19 aboard, 0 fatalities
Why: The helicopter that was ditched in the North Sea has been retrieved and taken to Peterhead, Aberdeenshire.
The UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) is investigating the incident in which seventeen passengers and two crew were on the way to the drilling rig when the crew had to ditch the helicopter (controlled ditching) in the North sea.
Report name:
S5/2012 – EC225 LP Super Puma, G-REDW
Registration:
G-REDW
Type:
EC225 LP Super Puma
Location:
20 nm east of Aberdeen
Date of occurrence:
10 May 2012
Category:
Commercial Air Transport – Rotorcraft
Summary:
This Special Bulletin contains information about the helicopter’s main gearbox (MGB) lubrication system and the results of an investigation into the indication of a failure of the emergency lubrication system, after it was activated by the crew. It follows publication of two earlier Special Bulletins on this accident, AAIB Special Bulletins S2/2012 and S3/2012.
This was the first occasion that the EC225 LP MGB emergency lubrication system had been operated in-service. One Safety Recommendation is made.
The investigation into the failure of the bevel gear vertical shaft in the MGB continues.
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