Category: Safety

Aviation safety

Farewell Marta

Well, it had to happen. Sooner or later, everyone who flies loses a friend to an accident. I’ve been lucky — since 1998 there hasn’t been a single person I can think of who’s been killed in an aircraft — but that changed recently when an odd mechanical failure claimed the life of Marta Meyer. I was in Las Vegas… Read more →

Lessons from Athens

The crew members of a Cypriot airliner that crashed Aug. 14 near Athens became confused by a series of alarms as the plane climbed, failing to recognize that the cabin was not pressurizing until they grew mentally disoriented because of lack of oxygen and passed out, according to several people connected with the investigation. Dan alterted me to this International… Read more →

Convertible Baron

My home base airport sits in the Santa Ana canyon area of Southern California. It’s so heavily traveled by general aviation aircraft that a certain paranoia about a midair collision sets in. Everyone–and I mean everyone–keeps their eyes peeled while flying near Corona. When flying over less populated areas, however, a certain complacency can set in. After all, midair collisions… Read more →

Look Ma, No Flight Controls

Who says flying cargo is boring? Certainly not the DHL Global flight crew that landed their crippled Airbus A300 at Baghdad International Airport last November. Their jet was hit by a surface-to-air missile at 8,000 feet while on descent for landing in Baghdad. The missile tore off a large chunk of the left wing, which sounds bad but is not… Read more →

Eurotrash

This fascinating photo was sent by a fellow T210 pilot: The pilot of this (now totaled) helicopter was trying to taxi past a maintenance hangar when his rotors cut into the hangar doors. This shredded the doors, rolled the aircraft over, and blew shrapnel through the hangar into several aircraft parked inside, including a jet. It wasn’t a small whirlybird,… Read more →

The Kennedy Connection

By now, the whole world knows John F. Kennedy, Jr.’s plane is missing. As of right now, they’ve found some baggage with ID tags from one of the passengers and some other wreckage which has been identified as coming from a GA (general aviation) aircraft. Not a good sign. Sad as it seems, the three on board are probably long… Read more →

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