1.0 Introduction
On July 17, 1996, Trans World Airlines flight 800, A Boeing 747-100, exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near New York 12 minutes after its departure. All 230 people on board died.
1.1 Accident Timeline
Although the flight was scheduled to depart from JFK Airport at about 7:00 p.m., it was delayed due to a disabled piece of ground equipment and concerns about a suspected passenger mismatch with baggage. The airplane took off at 8:18 p.m., shortly at 8:25 p.m., Boston air route traffic control center (ARTCC) instructed the pilots to climb and maintain an altitude of 19,000 feet and then lower down to 15,000 feet. However, at 8:26 p.m., Boston ARTCC amended TWA flight 800's altitude clearance, advising the pilots to maintain an altitude of 13,000 feet. At 8:29 p.m., the captain stated, "Look at that crazy fuel flow indicator there on number four... see that?" One minute later Boston ARTCC advised them to climb and maintain 15,000 feet to which the pilot replied: “Climb thrust”. After an extremely loud and quick sound, the cockpit voice recorder stopped recording at 8:31 p.m. At that moment, the crew of an Eastwind Airlines Boeing 737 flying nearby reported an explosion in the sky. TWA Flight 800 aircraft had broken up and crashed into the sea, 8 miles south of East Moriches, killing all on board. (1,2)
2.0 Accident Investigation
The Safety Board’s lengthy investigation revealed the possibilities of short circuiting wire systems as a source of ignition within the fuel tank, which would provide the minimum ignition energy required according to the parameters established by the American Petroleum Institute (API) as well as the analysis of the conditions within the CWT at the time of the incident. The he...
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...red testing at Lectromec showed that contaminants, such as water, lavatory fluid, and metal shavings, can create a bridge that can allow energy to unintentionally transfer between wires with cracked or damaged insulation for as long as 25 minutes without tripping circuit breakers. Specifically, the totalizer gauge’s wires on TWA Flight 800 had been improperly soldered together and had subsequently cracked apart, providing another opportunity for an explosive short circuit. During examination of the gauge at Honeywell, it was determined that electrical energy would cross the crack in the solder between the connector pins when slightly more than 270 volts (less than is used in lighting circuits) was applied to one of the pins. Thus, a short circuit from a higher-voltage wire to any corouted FQIS wiring could result in excess energy being transferred to the CWT.
"Welding Processes, Welding Faults, Defects & Discontinuities For NDT Technicians Part 3." Hera.org. Hera, n.d. Web. 15 Mar. 2014. .
On November 28, 2004 at about 10:00 a.m. mountain standard time, a Canadair (now Bombardier) CL-600-2A12 (Challenger 600), tail number N873G, crashed into the ground during takeoff at Montrose Regional Airport (MJT), Montrose, Colorado. The aircraft was registered to Hop-a-Jet, Inc., and operated by Air Castle Corporation doing business as Global Aviation. (Insert Here)The flight was operating under Part 135 Code of Federal Regulations. The captain filed the flight under an IFR Flight plan. Of the six passengers on board, three died from fatal injuries and the other three sustained major injuries. The aircraft was totaled due to the impact with the ground and a post-crash fire.
The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the failure of the flightcrew to monitor the flight instrument during the final 4 minutes of flight, and to detect an unexpected descent soon enough to prevent impact with the ground. Preoccupation with a malfunction of the nose landing gear position indicating system distracted the crew's attention from the instruments and allowed the descent to go unnoticed.
The plane touched down 2000 feet into the runway and it was believed that Pilot did not deploy the thrust reversers till 18 seconds after touchdown which was way too late and by that time, the aircraft was only 1000 feet away from the end of the runway and it was likely to smash into the fence. Reports from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) showed the Southwest Airlines jet had...
With the use of airplanes as a common method of travel, in-flight safety should be a top priority for both airplane manufacturers and the companies that operate them. There should be an emphasis on updating aircraft technology to enhance passenger safety and provide an understanding of failures during flight. Today, during a crash or major in-flight incident, important aircraft information is recorded to a flight data recorder commonly referred to as the black box. Airplanes are generally equipped with two flight data recorders which may be in the same black box unit or separate black boxes. There are “two separate pieces of equipment – a cockpit voice recorder, which records all of the sound and conversations that happen in the cockpit, and a flight data recorder, which records the planes operating functions” (Bogart). This recorded information is critical to the improvement and advancement of safety policies and procedures. Unfortunately, many times the aircraft or flight data recorder is unrecoverable or the information recorded is limited. The lack of proper in-flight data recording and recovery systems prohibits critical data collected during an accident from reaching airplane manufacturers, which limits the ability to improve the safety of each airplane. The loss of such data also limits institutions from implementing new training and policies for pilots and crews that would result in overall improved flight safety. The need for more reliable and advanced in-flight data recording and recovery systems is essential to the overall safety of commercial air travel.
For many, being a pilot is a very glamorous job. It does sound like a high profile job, but it is by no means an easy feat. I chose to be a pilot because I wanted to be a globetrotter. I knew that being a commercial pilot is an opportunity to travel to many exciting places. To become a professional pilot, I have trained over 2000 hours. After finishing my training I applied for British airways and trained for nearly one year in the flight simulators of the Boeing 777.
This report is on the Crossair flight 3597 crash which happens at Zurich airport on 24th November 2001. Analysis of Crossair flight 3597 will be covered, which includes details such as facts of Crossair flight 3597 crash, and the three contributing factors involved in the air accident. The three contributing factors are mainly Crossair, pilot error and communications with air traffic controllers.
The above mentioned airplane was a planned commercial passenger flight that took off from LaGuardia Airport, New York destined for Charlotte Douglas Airport in North Carolina on January 15, 2009. Six minutes after takeoff, the airplane was successfully abandoned in Hudson River after striking multiple birds during its initial climb out. The crew reported by radio two minutes after takeoff at an altitude of 3,200 feet, the Airbus experienced multiple bird strikes. The result of this multiple bird strikes, which occurred in northeast of George Washington Bridge was compressor stalls as well as loss of thrust in both engines. The Airbus was ditched in Hudson River after the aircrew discovered that they would not reach any airfield and turned southward. Fortunately, all the 155 passengers on board survived the accident though the Airbus was partly submerged and sinking slowly.
On February 24, 1989, United Airlines flight 811 was en route to Sydney, Australia from Honolulu, Hawaii. They later experienced decompression due to the cargo door failure in front aft during flight. Flight 811 made successful emergency landing at Honolulu with nine passengers missing out of 337 passenger aboard. The cargo door that was ejected on Flight 811 damaged engines 3 and 4, which led to crew to turn back to Honolulu.
Summary William Boeing founded the Boeing airplane company in the early 20th century. After strings of acquisitions and mergers, this company grew and became the largest global aerospace industry. Followed by previous reorganizations in the 1990s, this company decided to start its branding campaign in May 2001. This campaign consisted of lots of effort and structural changes for the first time in corporate history. The media was showing the initial success of this campaign just after its beginning.
Since the probe, General Motors had created a new post that is charged with responsibility for vehicle safety (Muller, 2013). General Motors terminated sixteen people for their role in not repairing the faulty ignition switch. The mindset throughout General Motors was to retain the bad news and keep it apart from senior supervisors. This was undeviatingly contributed to no effort being taken to remedy the faulty switch. Because of this, General Motors is directly accountable for the graves of 13
The airport that I chose is the Los Angeles International airport. It is the airport in my hometown and I have always been fascinated by its operation. I currently work in the city of El Segundo in which it is located. Its ICAO call sign is KLAX, NPIAS - 06-0139. Given its size it is a large primary airport. It is publicly owned by the city of Los Angeles with the management of the property handled by Jacqueline Yaft. LAX started operation in 1940 and was a tertiary hub to the main airports at the time located in Burbank and Glendale. It currently utilizes 4 runways, with the longest stretching in length above 12,000 ft and one helipad. When it first started operations there were only two main runways. American, Trans World, United, Western and Pan Am operated primarily from Los Angeles International Airport in 1947 as defined by Masters,N. (2012). Today LAX consists of nine terminals with one main international terminal (Named after Tom Bradley a long standing mayor of Los Angeles during the 1990’s). It services an average of 63 million passengers per year and is considered the sixth largest airport in the United States.
KUALA LUMPUR, March 12 - Flight MH370 was carrying 239 passengers on board on 8 March 2014 and was en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing when air control staff lost contact with the flight.
On the evening of January 10th, 2000, Crossair (Crossair at the time before the transition to Swissair) Flight 498, a two-turboprop Saab 340B aircraft, took off from Zurich, Switzerland enroute to Dresden, Germany carrying seven passengers and three crew members. Taxi, takeoff and climb went normally until roughly two minutes into the flight ATC began to notice the aircraft was losing altitude and banking right when the aircraft was directed by ATC to turn left. Moments later ATC lost contact with the aircraft. In an after accident report created by Swiss AAIB, it was determined that the cause of the accident was contributed to pilot error through many factors that include the PIC activating the autopilot under IFR conditions and during the climb phase, the PIC had lost spatial orientation and increased the right bank dive, as well as the copilot’s failure to assist the PIC in dive prevention and recovery. In addition, the PIC was under the influence of a strong sedative (ASN Aircraft Accident, 2000). Based on these findings the PIC failed to comply with the commander responsibilities found under EASA Commission Regulation (EU) No 965/2012, CAT.GEN.MPA.105.
Flight 370 was an international passenger flight that went missing on March 8, 2014. The flight was scheduled in route to Beijing, but it went missing throughout the second day after the plane took off from Kuala National Airport. At approximately 1:21 p.m., the communications and transponder signal were functioning no longer. There were no emergency calls at the time the plane had its last checkpoint. On March 24 at approximately 10p.m.Malaysia Standard Time, officials ceased the search as radio signals picked up debris found throughout a remote Indian Ocean. It is believed that all of the 239 passengers on the plane died (Preimesberger). From protests and outcries, to mourning and fallouts, it is still a distraught event that shocked the world.