On CBS, Sully Sullenberger said that we may be making air planes “too complicated” for pilots to react quickly when “things go awry.”
Sully admitted that in his famous landing on the hudson, all his speed sensors still worked. The pilots of the Air France flight were operating under massive disadvantages, flying at night, at the top of a storm,very turbulent, losing all speed reference (one of the most critical parameters of flying an airplane), leaving the pilots only the pitch and thrust settings to maintain flight.
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United Airlines Flight 1199 (Boeing 737-990/ER) had just landed from Newark with 175 aboard; Alaska Airlines flight 143 (Boeing 757-224) to Portland was departing with 182 aboard when they made contact.
The left hand winglet of the arriving 737 contacted the right hand horizontal stabilizer of the departing 757. Fortunately the Alaska jet was not on its take-off run, so the impact happened at a crawl (i.e. “taxiing at a low speed.”). Passengers said they felt a jolt. The planes were stuck together; and part of one plane had “snapped off.”
The impact occurred at 7:51, derailing travel plans of the passengers, and scheduling for the two damaged jets. Some passengers were put up at local hotels, but there were no reported injuries.
A passenger who shot a well-circulated picture that was released on twitter was besieged with reporter requests to post the image. Actor Peter Cambor who was aboard also tweeted that the jets were “stuck together.”
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The families of Mike and Anne Harris have settled their lawsuit against Air France. Michael was 60, from Greenville, South Carolina, a graduate of Clemson University, an expert in geology and oil field operations with Devon Energy in Rio and West Africa Group. (Devon Energy is based in Oklahoma.) Ann was 54, from Lafayette. She suffered from Fibromyalgia, was Fibromyalgia Association of Houston volunteer and a physical therapist. They had been married sixteen years, by the time they booked the fatal flight; and the trip was business and pleasure, because they were going to a training seminar in Paris, and for vacation. They left behind them friends in Lafayette, Houston and Brazil where they had lived.
Mike and Anne Harris were the only Americans on the flight. According to their lawyer, the case has settled.
Crash History
The 4 year old Air France Airbus A330-200 en route from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Paris when it went missing over the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, 2009. Two hundred sixteen passengers (including seven children and one baby, 82 women and 126 men) and 12 crew were aboard. There were two Americans and 60 French citizens were on the plane. Italy said at least three passengers were Italian.The pilot had 11,000 hours of flying experience, and 1,700 hours flying this aircraft.
The last known radio contact was an automatic message made at 0133 GMT when the plane was near the Island of Fernando de Noronha; since then, the airplane has made no radio communication. Fifteen minutes after flying through a storm and strong turbulence, there was an electrical short-circuit. Search planes left Fernando de Noronha Island looking for signs of the plane concentrating in an area 230 miles off the northeast Brazil coast. The flight left Rio at 7 p.m. and was expected in Paris on Monday at 11:15 a.m. The wreckage broke apart, the pieces scattered at sea, and the black boxes were not recovered until May 2011.
It is an interesting time to settle the case–right when the world is on the cusp of discovery of what caused the crash.
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What: Lindstrand LBL 180A Where: Ljubljana Slovenia When: August 23, 2012 Who: 30 passengers, 2 crew, 4 fatalities, 28 injured Why: A hot air balloon with 32 aboard caught fire and crashed into a tree, burning four beyond recognition. At least six children were injured. Then people at the scene were reported resuscitated; eight in the crash were in critical condition. One passenger was quoted as saying “we were landing, but I think the speed was too high for landing so we hit the ground, bounced off once and hit it again. We held on, but five of us fell out“. Twenty-one were admitted in the hospital Ljubljana, and seven to other hospitals. The injured included one brit and three Italians.
When the balloon hit the ground and and bounced back in the air, some passengers jumped or fell out, scattering the injured across four locations and making it more difficult for rescuers. Nine teams with ambulances and twelve emergency medical service teams responded as well as 79 firefighters, 20 fire fighting vehicles and three helicopters.
The balloon takes off and lands in uncontrolled airspace and does not need air traffic control clearance.
Prime Minister Janez Janša, Minister for Health Tomaz Gantar, Minister of Defense Aleš Hojs and Interior Minister Vinko Gorenak expressed condolences.
The cause is being attributed to ground level wind shear. The pilot needed to retake a health exam to renew his license in June.
Five are unidentified.
The on board extinguishers apparently had cracked cylinders.
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On March 11, 2013, an Air Canada Embraer ERJ-190 en route from Edmonton to Toronto,ON was on approach when ATC informed the pilots to abort the landing. Ground radar indicated something moving on the runway. Pilots continued to make the landing, and ignored ATC.
Mechanics working on a Sunwing Boeing had left a van running and in gear, which subsequently rolled without a driver across the runway. At some point, the van impacted the Sunwing 737.
In George’s Point of View
While we can’t make assumptions, apparently the pilots saw the van safely flew over it and made a secure landing.
However, there are a lot of errors here that could have been disaster. We are glad no one was injured. Safety first, everyone!
The maintenance crew for failing to secure their vehicle.
ATC for not using the call sign, even if it was evident to them who they were speaking to.
Pilots for ignoring ATC even if they saw the “threat” because there could have been an additional alert
That said, of course we are glad no one was injured.
At last the flight data recorder from the crash of a Lao Airlines turboprop ATR-72 has been recovered from the Mekong river. The cockpit voice recorder has been located also but has not yet been retrieved due to the strong currents and muddy water of the Mekong.
The flight data recorder tracks technical data: altitude, speed and route.
A cockpit voice recorder records cockpit conversation. The cockpit voice recorder has not been retrieved, though news releases to the contrary have been circulated.
What: twin-engine Beechcraft 200 propeller plane en route from Manta to Quito’s airport Where: 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) from the airport near Hotel Quito When: 5:20 pm (2220 GMT) Who: seven people were killed: 5 aboard; 2 on the ground Why: small military plane on a training flight clipped some tree tops and crashed into an apartment building. The reports list two buildings.
Initial reports said the deaths included the wife and son of the pilot, Major Julio Zaldumbide but we have not verified that information.
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