Southwest Airlines flight 4378 had to divert and make an emergency landing in Omaha, Nebraska, on February 23rd.
The plane heading from Denver, Colorado, to Chicago, Illinois, was diverted after the crew noticed an unusual odor in the cabin.
The plane landed uneventfully. All 140 passengers and 5 crew members remained safe.
Transavia flight HV-6331 had to return and make an emergency landing in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on February 1st.
The Boeing 737-700 plane took off for Valencia, Spain, but had to turn back after the crew reported navigation system problems.
The plane landed safely. All passengers and crew members remained unharmed.
Shaheen Air flight NL-766 had to return and make an emergency landing in Lahore, Pakistan, on August 16th.
The Airbus A319-100 plane took off for Dubai, United Arab Emirates, but had to return shortly afterwards due to a cabin pressurization issue.
The plane landed back safely. All passengers and crew members remained unharmed.
Braathens Regional Airways flight TF-1 had to return and make an emergency landing in Gothenburg, Sweden, on November 7th.
The Stockholm-bound plane was accelerating and retracting the flaps when the crew decided to turn back due to unusual vibrations.
The plane landed safely. All 50 passengers aboard remained unharmed.
A Robinson R-44 helicopter crashed in a hayfield around 2 miles north of Ketchum, Oklahoma, on August 25th.
FAA authorities said the helicopter, flying from Ketchum airport, went down after it lost its tail rotor.
The pilot, who was the only one aboard, remained uninjured.
The accident is being investigated.
The NTSB was discussing safety measures in late October, especially pilot training before stalls. The new rule has been a long time coming. Earl Weener, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, talked about the serious history of pilots wrongly pulling the plane’s nose up till the plane fell to the ground. If training is part of the problem, then at least that is a lack that can be amended.
Only twenty-six percent of pilots train for high altitude stalls, but according to a NASA study, twenty-eight percent of stalls are high altitude stalls. Seventy-one percent of stalls happen while autopilot is on.
In early November we heard how the FAA unveiled a rule about pilot training to avoid stalling airliners. It came about because of four crashes: Those crashes were Colgan 3407 in 2009, Air France 447 in June 2009, Pinnacle Airlines 3701 in October 2004 and USAir 427 in September 1994. (Too bad there have to be stall issues before stall training came to the attention of officials.) In the February 2009 crash of Colgan Air, it was determined that the pilots–as in the three other flights–in the midst of a blizzard in Buffalo pulled up on the nose of the plane, causing the crash. A meeting of air safety leaders in late November has jump-started the plans. Though something that has taken so long in the works can hardly said to be jump—started.
The powers that be sound positive about the new rule.
The FAA speculates training will save nearly seven million because of prevention—at a program cost of $274 million. Within five years this will mean:
I have been beating a drum for a long time about obvious solutions to obvious problems. Yes, things may fail, but why not implement preventative measures where available? So now rather than my usual battle-cry: Maintenance! Maintenance! Maintenance! Maybe I will be saying Training! Training! Training! I am looking forward to increased safety brought about by this new rule.
A helicopter carrying Indian Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh had to return and make an emergency landing at Tezpur IAF airbase in Assam, India, on December 25.
The helicopter was en-route to Kokrajhar when it was forced to return due to a technical problem.
The chopper landed back uneventfully.
Singh resumed his journey in an alternate helicopter after some time.
