Accidents

Both his wife and the instructor who had recommended him for his instrument rating two years earlier described the 1,500-hour pilot as thoughtful and analytical. He had “strong flying skills,” the instructor said; his wife observed that “he liked to plan ahead and have a contingency plan.” The 640 nm trip from Torrance, a southern […]

A rare scene was caught on video in the skies over Fayetteville, Arkansas, on Tuesday when former Walmart CEO Bill Simon experienced engine trouble en route to Waco, Texas, and popped the ballistic parachute on his Cirrus SR22, floating to safety as amazed onlookers watched. According to a recording of the incident at LiveATC.net, ATC […]

The future of AgustaWestland’s AW609 civil tiltrotor program has been thrown into doubt after the crash of a prototype in Italy on Friday that killed the two test pilots on board. Radar data appears to confirm that the aircraft, Prototype 2, went down about 10 minutes after takeoff near Santhia in northern Italy, near the […]

Back in March, Harrison Ford made headlines with his emergency landing in a Ryan PT-22 on a golf course in Santa Monica, California. The forced landing was successful, and while Ford suffered serious injuries, he was back in the skies after only three months. However, it appears that he doesn’t remember all of the forced […]

A dramatic scene was captured on video today as a Boeing 767 caught fire while taxiing for departure at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Florida. Passengers could be seen evacuating via slides onto the taxiway though there are reports of injuries. Plumes of black smoke billowed from the jet as passengers streamed to safety. A […]

An F/A-18C fighter jet based at the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar outside San Diego crashed in a farm field near the Royal Air Force Lakenheath, England, yesterday. The airplane was part of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 232 and was on its way back to California from a mission in Bahrain, MCAS Miramar reported. The […]

Back in July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 went down over Ukraine killing all 298 people on board the Boeing 777. On Tuesday the Dutch Safety Board released their final conclusions in the investigations citing that the crash was caused by “detonation of a 9N314M-type warhead launched from the eastern part of Ukraine using […]

A Piper Cherokee struck a mobile home in Lake Worth, Florida, on Tuesday evening, killing the pilot and a young woman sleeping inside the trailer. Footage from nearby surveillance shows the plane in a steep bank, its wings almost vertical, before it dives into the mobile home. Flames engulfed the plane and the trailer, where […]

An airplane whose CG is significantly far behind the aft limit becomes neutrally stable or even mildly unstable. It can still be flown by a sufficiently alert pilot, but to a pilot who is unprepared for it, the experience is disorienting and can easily lead to overcontrol. Overcontrol in the nose-up direction, in turn, can […]

While we hear of gear up landings from time to time, a gear up takeoff is definitely an unusual incident. But here is a video that serves as proof that it does happen, too. A Mooney M20C departing from Raglan, New Zealand, dropped on its nose just as it was about to lift off a […]