I remember Air Florida Flight 90, I went thru DC not long after right near the bridge. It was creepy. I'd also been at the Northeast Flight '91 Airshow before the Sea King crashed, but left about an hour before. I got home to that news and was glad I left when I did, I'd have been scary close.
Air disasters we remember (also for Astro14)
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This one really stuck with me, not the first (I was 30, but was traveling for business all the time, not a flight I didn't think of it):
PS I didn't realize there are so many fake photos of this.
PSS I traveled to Toronto 2 weeks after 911
A book I got a lot out of is Redefining Airmanship by Tony Kern.
A lot depends on the scale. But I remember the PSA 727 that crashed into a neighborhood in San Diego. I was pretty young then, but this sort of disaster (it crashed into a Cessna violating its airspace while one pilot was wearing a hood practicing instrument flying) was big news.
I also remember United 232. It was mentioned a lot in my college materials science class. The professor was an expert in metal fatigue, and this was something he mentioned a lot when fatigue testing was discussed.
But closer to home it was about the crash of a Beechcraft into the Sunvalley Shopping Center in Concord, California.
I also remember United 232. It was mentioned a lot in my college materials science class. The professor was an expert in metal fatigue, and this was something he mentioned a lot when fatigue testing was discussed.
But closer to home it was about the crash of a Beechcraft into the Sunvalley Shopping Center in Concord, California.
MolaKule
Staff member
USAIR Flight 427. Was on the team that analyzed various structures to determine speed of impact.
TWA Flight 800. Analyzed fuel tank and electrical system to determine if there was sufficient electrical energy to ignite center fuel tank vapors.
TWA Flight 800. Analyzed fuel tank and electrical system to determine if there was sufficient electrical energy to ignite center fuel tank vapors.
PSA crashing into the North Park neighborhood of San Diego. Years later I ended up working with the daughter of the co pilot.
Part of what gets me is the irony of some of these accidents.
If only the Air Florida crew had shoved the throttles of their old 737-200 all the way forward they would have made it.
If only the crew of AF 447 had left things alone they would have been fine.
Sometimes, a crew becomes captive to inaccurate information they see on the panel.
If only the Air Florida crew had shoved the throttles of their old 737-200 all the way forward they would have made it.
If only the crew of AF 447 had left things alone they would have been fine.
Sometimes, a crew becomes captive to inaccurate information they see on the panel.
A former USAF B-1 pilot - Tony Kern’s “Going Pro” is all about professionalism and deliberate practice and a book that really inspired me.
It’s really easy to to criticize those who were in the moment, when we have the benefit of both hindsight, and low stress.
Until one has experienced real stress, and an amygdala hijack, one really has no idea how hard it is to break perceptions when one’s frontal cortex has been disabled.
https://www.healthline.com/health/stress/amygdala-hijack
That TV show -1000 Ways to Die- did a piece about the flight attendant who died on that flight. They basically said she was a ***** who had it coming. I thought it was very disrespectful.
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Oh dang
Southwest Airlines Flight 1248 on December 8, 2005 at Midway airport. Came in to land during a snow storm, had to use a different runway because of weather so they had a tailwind, slid off the runway into an intersection, killing a 6 year old and severely injuring 5 others in a vehicle.
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I have been in a situation where death by drowning was a real potential outcome. I had plenty of air in my tank, so I had time to calm myself and to think. Had I simply allowed the panic reaction to prevail I probably wouldn't have made it out.
The Air Florida crew had only very limited time to think and act.
The Air France crew had all the time in the world to think and had they touched nothing that A330 would have simply continued on its way.
I agree - but the Air France case is more complex than that.
Yes, the response was totally inappropriate, but training for unreliable airspeed was non-existent at the time. So, when an inexperienced* pilot was confronted with this situation, he misinterpreted the instruments and responded, out of fight/flight instinct in a totally inappropriate manner, causing the stall.
But, once in the stall, as the stress level rose, the fight/flight response became more powerful, and the ability to think through the problem greatly diminished. Again, amygdala hijack.
In the stall - they responded as trained. In the Airbus, stall recovery is “max thrust/full back stick”. That’s how they trained. So, they sank to their level of training. They responded as trained. They weren’t trained to notice the shift to alternate law, and how that prevented recovery by removing the envelope protections.
That, by the way is how human beings respond to stress, they sink to their level of training. Archilochus first observed that 2,500 years ago.
So, the fault then is in a system (Air France, EU flight certification) that allows such raw inexperience on the flight deck of a wide body, and in a system that provides inadequate training for both the airspeed failure and the degradation of the airplane into alternate law.
*He had 1,500 hours total. But hours don’t tell the entire story.
Crossing the ocean, at night, with the autopilot on for 99% of the time is not meaningful experience. Taking off and flying in formation, flying IMC, flying at low level, delivering weapons, performing aerobatics, engaging in mock combat, practicing carrier landings, so that every minute was filled with tasks, responses, and actual stick and rudder flying at the limit of an airplane’s performance is meaningful flying.
On a transatlantic flight in a highly automated airplane, the pilot at many airlines is actively hand flying for around 2-3 minutes of that 10 hours. So, sure 1,500 hours - but if that 1,500 hours represented an actual time of several hours with the autopilot off, then this was a wildly inexperienced pilot.
When I had the airspeed failure, I had around 800 hours. But every minute of every one of those hours was real flying - no autopilot, no “cruise” phase of flight. Every moment was true, high performance flying. At 800 hours, I probably had 100 times the experience of this 1,500 hours youngster at the controls of AF447.
Duh I’m sorry! I was multi tasking between cuts at work while listening to a mentor now episode
You could edit my post so it’s accurate if you want
I remember them all but Air Florida was especially memorable because I was driving through the same storm on NYC's West Side Highway, stuck in traffic due to the snow because approximately 35-40 people just abandoned their cars, I had to thread myself around them while listening to the news reports on the crash. It wasn't a huge amount of snow but enough (2-4") to cause big problems plus there was also freezing rain and I had to pull over every so often to de-ice the windshield wipers. It took 4 hrs to make a commute that usually took 45 min. I was going from 26th St and 9th Ave in Manhattan to central Westchester County only about 33 miles. Once I passed the George Washington Bridge there were no cars on the road, it was very eerie with snow blowing sideways, hard to see the where the lanes were and the road ended, and the last climb I had to make between White Plains NY and Elmsford NY had me praying I wasn't going to slide off the road. Made it, by the time I got home the snow was up to the bumper on my 1980 Honda Civic (shod with 4 snow tires). Front wheel wells were so packed with snow and ice I had to make wide turns and no power steering in those days....
Done. Cheers.Duh I’m sorry! I was multi tasking between cuts at work while listening to a mentor now episode
You could edit my post so it’s accurate if you want
