RENO AIR RACES CRASH – Pilot Tried to Avoid Bleachers

74-year-old Jimmy Leeward, a movie stunt pilot was flying a P-51 Mustang called « Galloping Ghost » for the Reno Air Race yesterday September 16, 2011.

On the video you can see that shortly after lifting-up to reach the middle part of a loop, the aircraft dived towards the bleachers, and crashed very close to them. According to the news, 3 died, and 54 would have been injured, 12 of which in severe conditions. A Mayday emergency call would have been heard a few seconds before the accident.

The Reno Air Races have been cancelled even if the families insisted on letting the airshow go on. Some videos on the Internet show how violent the impact was. The area has been cordoned off as the NTSB is still investigating, as well as FAA officials were on the spot, and a mass-casualty situation has been reported.

Jimmy Leeward would have tried to dodge the bleachers as his P-51 was going down. The famous pilot would have saved hundreds of potential casualties before he died, according to this eyewitness account:

Facebooktwitterlinkedinmail

When mice take the Mickey out of airline…

Mouse in commercial aircraft
Mouse - Photo © George Shuklin, Wikimedia.org

It first happened on Monday September 5, 2011. A Nepal Airlines flight was cancelled at Tribhuvan International Airport, Kathmandu.

Do you guess why? The flight attendants spotted a stowaway mouse onboard their B-757 bound to Bangkok! The small rodent fled from the galley’s pantry, and rushed from a box of drinks to the back of the cabin although the 113 passengers did not notice the tiny stowaway.

The mouse was finally caught thanks to a glue trap. The jetliner was grounded for more than eleven hours.

 

Then, the same Boeing 757 – this time bound to Kathmandu – was grounded at Hong Kong International Airport on Tuesday September 6, in the evening.

The reason: the pilots spotted a mouse in the cockpit just before the airplane departure. The aircraft has not been cleared to take off because this mouse was trapped but then escaped, and would still be on the loose. The 84 passengers were rerouted on a Dragonair aircraft.

 

As far as flight safety is concerned, an aircraft cannot take off with a mouse moving freely onboard as it can gnaw the wiring, and therefore represents a potentiel danger.

It can only be caught or trapped. However, NAC (Nepal Airlines Corporation) could not poison any mouse for a small animal can damage an airplane even if it is dead somewhere, and particularly if in contact with a vital part of the plane.

 

Special thanks to Mr Hermas, and LadyEleanorA who buzzed this piece of news.

Facebooktwitterlinkedinmail

Russian hockey team perish in plane crash

Poor quality fuel possible cause of Yak-42 crash – aviation source

02:15 08/09/2011 Poor quality of aviation fuel could be one of possible reasons for why the Yak-42 plane crashed in Central Russia on Wednesday, killing more than 40 people.>>

Other news of the day

Facebooktwitterlinkedinmail

MACH-20 AEROSPACECRAFT

New-York to Los Angeles in 12 minutes… It would have been a record-breaker, had it worked:

The DARPA and USAF FALCON project might give anybody the thrill of speed as this « aerospacecraft » has been designed to reach Mach 20 i.e. around 20,000 km/h; 5.6 km/s; 10,800 knots; or 12,400 mph depending on the air temperature, and the altitude which might be above at least FL900!

DARPA USAF FALCON HTV-2 hypersonic aerospacecraft - 22 April 2011
DARPA HTV-2 - 22 April 2011 ---- Photo: DARPA, US Federal Government

Unfortunately, the project seems to encounter major difficulties as the last test which unfolded on August 11, 2011 failed again. The previous one – also on an HTV2 – had failed in April. Click on the right-hand side picture to get further information on the first test. The Blackswift (HTV-3X)  had been designed by ATK; Boeing; Lockheed Martin; and Skunk Works to provided a strategic strike anywhere in the world within an hour. It was cancelled due to a lack of funds (see the HTV-3 shown in the following video):

 


 

  • DARPA stands for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
  • FALCON stands for Force Application and Launch from CONtinental United States
  • FL stands for Flight Level (FL x 100ft = altitude)
  • HTV stands for Hypersonic Test Vehicle or Hypersonic Technology Vehicle
  • RCS means here in the videos: Reaction Control System (and not Radar Cross Section)

Click on the picture below, and then on the blue arrows to watch the different phases of light:

Flight Overview slide, MACH-20 DARPA AEROSPACECRAFT
Flight Overview slide - Interactive picture: DARPA, U.S. Federal Government

Facebooktwitterlinkedinmail

Rio-Paris Flight 447 Crash Analysis

Special thanks to Thierry Hermas who teaches English radiotelephony at the French Air Force Academy (EOAA Salon de Provence). Indeed, he has analyzed, and compiled some extracts of the Air France Flight 447 reports issued by the BEA (Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’analyses pour la sécurité de l’aviation civile – Flight safety investigations and analyses bureau www.bea.aero) for training purposes.

CLICK HERE (updated):                        

Images and publications of Rio-Paris crash
 
 
 

Another update – 2012 FINAL REPORT OF RIO-PARIS FLIGHT 447

 
 
 

In addition to this document, Mr Hermas suggested two videos about the Rio-Paris crash which happened on June 1, 2009. The video hereafter is the first of a series of four:

The second video is available here: http://www.france24.com/en/20110527-air-france-flight-rio-paris-pilots-crash-brazil-airbus

Here is another video about a few extracts of the cockpit audio transcript translated into English:

Facebooktwitterlinkedinmail