Free Flight Video Magazine

39 years ago on the 4th of September 1971, Alaska Airlines Flight 1866 crashed on approach to Juneau, Alaska.

The Boeing 727, carrying 104 passengers and 7 crew members, flew into the Chilkat Mountain range. There were no survivors.

Aircraft Accident Report, Alaska Airlines, Inc. Boeing 727, N2969G

The flight had been cleared for a Localizer Directional Aid (LDA) approach to Runway 8 and had reported passing the final approach fix inbound to the airport. This intersection is located 10.2 nautical miles west of the airport.

No further communications were heard from the flight.

Search and rescue found the wreckage 18.5 NM west of the airport. They had crashed into the slope of a canyon in the Chilkat Mountains. The wreckage was found around the 2,500 foot level, in “near-alignment with the Juneau localizer course”.

Witnesses said they heard a low-flying aircraft but couldn’t see the plane due to the fog.

They further stated that the engines sounded normal and that there was no change in the engine sounds from the time they first heard the aircraft until the sound of explosions was heard approximately 1 minute later.

The weather was not good: scattered cloud at 1,500 feet, broken cloud at 3,500 feet, overcast at 7,500 feet and light rainshowers. Visibility at Juneau Municipal Airport was given as 15 miles but the visibility on the ground near the crash site was estimated at 60-70 yards (55-65 metres).

Correlation between the CVR readout and the approximate flightpath derived from the flight data recorder traces shows that the first, unmistakable abnormality in the flight’s progress occurred at 1201:03 when the captain told the first officer; “‘kay, you’re Howard,” although the aircraft was actually about 9 NM west of Howard. Since prior cockpit conversation indicates that the captain had set the 3530 radial (Howard Intersection) into his CDI, it appears that the crew depended on a display of navigational information that seemed to be correct but was in error by about 450°. Similar erroneous indications of progress along the localizer course are evidence in subsequent intracockpit conversation with the conversation dealing with the passing of Rockledge and Earlow Intersections, although the aircraft, in fact, never progressed as far as Howard.

What this means is that although we don’t know what went wrong with the navigation, the cockpit recorder makes it very clear that the crew believed the plane was 11 miles (18.5 km) further along than it was and thus they descended below the safe altitude for the approach. The weather meant that they could not see the terrain below them nor the landmarks which would have alerted them that they were still in the mountains. There is no evidence that the crew ever became aware that they were flying into the mountain range.

The NTSB concluded that there were a number of different possibilities, ranging from malfunctioning equipment to signal interference to operational factions; however there was not enough evidence to support any one of them as the most probable explanation.

Probable Cause
The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was a display of misleading navigational information concerning the flight’s progress along the localizer course which resulted in a premature descent below obstacle clearance altitude. The origin or nature of the misleading navigational information could not be determined. The Board further concludes that the crew did not use all available navigational aids to check the flight’s progress along the localizer nor were these aids required to be used. The crew also did not perform the required audio identification of the pertinent navigational facilities.

That’s not to say that operational issues were the cause but that the crash could possibly have been avoided if the crew had used additional nav aids and especially that the cause could have been better identified if they had checked the audio identification of the VORs.

Neither the aircraft nor the navigational aids were found to have pertinent physical faults, so it does seem quite likely that human factors caused the initial issue. It is refreshing to see that the NTSB did not simply blame the crew. Although the report includes an in-depth analysis of the operational issues which could have led to a basic error being made, they clearly acknowledge that there is no evidence that crew error caused the crash.

Source: Sylvia

These posts and articles of injured aircraft caught my eye this week and I couldn’t help but think that they’d interest you as well. Although it makes my stomach cramp up to see crumpled pieces of plane, in every instance below there were no fatalities. Once you see the images below, I think you’ll agree that’s amazing.

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This amazing video of a rescue came to me via Golf Hotel Whiskey and My Flying Blog

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I linked this Cub crashing into a Cadillac last week (follow Fear of Landing on Facebook if you want alerts for the sidebar links). The article on Velozia Air stated that “The pilot and sole occupant of the Piper J-3 Cub suffered only minor injuries to his arm and hand in the accident. The Cadillac was destroyed.” ABC have since posted a set of photographs in a slideshow. Unbelievable:

See the slideshow for the full set: PHOTOS: Small plane crashes into car

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Looking at this photograph from Le Pays, it’s a miracle that the pilot walked away with only a minor shoulder injury. According to the article, the pilot flew in from England and landed to avoid bad weather. He then decided to carry on after all and crashed into the forest, flipping the plane over after hitting a tree.

You can see the full set of photographs and an article about the accident (in French) on Le Pays.

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And this plane crash-landed in Bahia last week. According to a commenter on the PPRuNe Forums, “the most plausible sequence of events seems to be a normal approach, slight undershoot and main gear being snapped off by the kerb at the end of the runway.” Amazingly, there were no fatalities and only two minor injuries.

The full-sized photograph and an article in Portuguese are on O Globo’s website: Avião da Embraer com 27 pessoas a bordo pousa de barriga na Bahia

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And while we’re talking about miracles … on the off chance that there is anyone left who hasn’t seen this great chart from Jeppesen memorialising the Hudson Landing by Captain Sully, I’ll link it once more:

Click on the image to view it at full-size. It’s a beautiful piece of work.

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And finally, from the PPRuNe forums, this article about an escaped vulture:
Vulture alert for the air traffic over England – PPRuNe Forums:

Warnings were issued to air traffic over Scotland and England yesterday after a vulture which is capable of soaring at heights of more than 30,000 feet escaped during an air show.
Britain’s air traffic control group to issue the warning. “We made pilots aware of the possibility of seeing this bird as it has a three-meter wingspan and can fly at altitudes used by commercial aircraft,” a British air traffic control spokesman says to the Telegraph of London.

…and my favourite comment from the thread:

She’s probably just gently winging it along one of the upper link routes as I type – If you happen to establish visual contact, gently wave your wings and she may squawk ident.

Not much carrion about at those sort of flight levels.

The vulture, who was named Gandalf, was returned to his home in Cumbernauld last week: BBC News – Delight after missing vulture found safe and well

Oh, but I do love a happy ending…

Source: Sylvia

I have been collecting my essays, articles and blog-posts into a single volume to see if it would read well as a book. This is the introduction: how I ended up studying for my Private Pilot’s Licence out of a grudge rather than actual interest. It didn’t take long before I was hooked!

I’ll post more in this sequence soon.

“You don’t need a real licence,” Tom said. The stern-faced ex-RAF instructor had already chided me for dressing inappropriately in my skirt and open-toed sandals. Now I realised he wanted to get rid of me.

He continued. “You want a wife’s licence. Forget the technical mumbo-jumbo. I’ll show you the radio and we’ll go up — you can even play with the flight controls.”

A strangled sound escaped me. A wife’s licence?

His condescending smile didn’t falter. “You’ll be done in a day so you can leave your boyfriend to concentrate on his studies. But if he has a heart attack in the air, you’ll know how to contact ATC and take instruction.”

It was Cliff with the crazy idea of buying a plane. I was just along for the ride, no interest in slogging through physics and engine mechanics. I was too old for exams. But wife’s licence? As if I weren’t competent to learn.

I twisted in my seat towards Cliff. The bastard was grinning.

“I’m getting my pilot’s licence.” The grit in my voice surprised even me.

“Fine,” said Tom. He turned his back to me, stacking up the course books at the front of the room. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow. In long trousers and sensible shoes.”

“You will.” I walked out without another word and sat in the car until Cliff came out to join me.

My determination lasted until dinner time.

“Honey, I don’t think I’m going to be able to learn from Tom.” As the owner of the flight school, his attitude towards me was going to affect all of us but I didn’t think I could manage to stay polite for the four weeks of the course.

“You don’t need to.” Cliff was reassuring, clearly thrilled that I’d decided to take this on. “He’s going back to England next week.”

English flying lessons local to us in Andalucía had been Cliff’s idea and he’d dealt directly with Tom to make it viable. The Oxford-based school had flown over with two Cessnas and three instructors, specifically to teach a group of four men that Cliff had gathered together to do a four-week, intensive course for the Private Pilot’s Licence, taking advantage of the weather. When the course was finished, the instructors would fly the two aircraft back to England to resume teaching at Oxford. Tom’s instructors had jumped at the chance to spend a few weeks in Spain and Cliff had found enough people to commit to full-time training that it was worth Tom’s time. Adding another person would make everyone happy and Cliff clearly thought I should get my PPL.

“You got along fine with the younger instructors,” he said. “I’m sure you won’t have any problems. It’ll be fun. And it’s only four weeks.”

Which was part of the problem. What if I didn’t keep up? At a normal flight school, I would keep doing lessons until I was good enough to take the exams. This set-up meant that if I lagged behind, the flight school was going to disband around me – or worse, take a loss trying to get me up to speed before they leave. Or really worst – push me to fly a plane before I was competent to do so.

Also, I’d looked at the books again. I started easy and sat down with the meteorology book – it was just weather, how hard could it be? I discovered wind charts and METAR’s and Terminal Aerodrome Forecasts with coded messages that were supposed to tell me if it was safe to fly. The radio-telephony book offered some solace: I already knew my international alphabet and I amused myself for a short time by parroting the phrases in a mock English accent. But the bulk of the stack was simply frightening. There were seven volumes, with detailed text on Flight Training Manoeuvres, Aviation Law, Navigation, Mechanics, Human Factors…

This did not sound like a fun holiday in Spain. This sounded like a lot of cramming, along with early mornings to fly “before the runway got too hot” and no beer at lunch time and at the end of it, I was going to know fine detail about a plane I didn’t even like.

“What’s it called again? The plane you bought.”

“Piper Saratoga.” Cliff waved the brochures at me, I was pretty sure he carried them with him everywhere. He told me, once again, what made it special and why it was the perfect aircraft for us. It looked like a plane.

I cleared the table and made my escape, leaving Cliff trailing a loving finger over a photograph of the propeller. He’d last flown over a decade previously but he’d done all this before, so he was simply renewing his PPL, not learning it all for the first time. It was easy for him.

The stack of books leant precariously on the coffee table. I turned my back on them and sat down at the computer to play solitaire.

They were all Englishmen, white, middle-class businessmen looking for adventure. I was a German-American woman, far from home and out of my depth. I’d lived abroad for over a decade: it was probably time that I got used to it. On the bright side, I had more time than the men – I was working freelance and could pare my projects down to the bone for the four weeks. They had to worry about businesses and family whereas my son was just at an age where he was happier hanging out with his friends and Cliff certainly wasn’t going to be jealous of my attention if I actually did this.

So I had a time advantage.

On the other hand, they’d discussed engines and mechanics with a comfortable ease. The conversation about airflow may as well have been in a foreign language: angles of attack and incidence, centrifugal force, lateral stability. They shouted loudly at each other as they cased the two Cessnas, peering at the wings and trying out the “captain’s seat” in the cockpit. I did too, of course, but at just under 5-foot in height, I couldn’t reach the pedals. I did not feel like a natural talent.

Solitaire, now there was something I could play all night long. A useful skill, solitaire.

The computer bleeped, an email from my best friend asking what was new. At least I would have something interesting to write back. I consoled myself with that thought. I’d be the life of the party, telling people all about the grease and the physics lessons and the macho comments and the spluttering engines and the weirdness of taking exams as a grown-up.

And it would be good for me to read the books. It would build character. So I’d go along for a laugh, take the tests, prove to Tom that girls could fly too. And then, I could forget it all and go back to being the passenger I’d intended to be all along.

Part 2: The Reluctant Pilot

Source: Sylvia