Cessna 414 Air Ambulance Crashes into BMW Dealership Kahului, Maui

Today is the 7th anniversary of a fatal crash involving a Cessna 414A that was on final approach to PHOG.

Pilot reported loss of one engine, and the aircraft stalled and crashed 0.6 miles from the runway.

The three crewmembers on the medical transport perished in the accident.

N5601C.

You can read the NTSB report HERE

FLIGHT movie technical accuracy & errors - Denzel Washington

OK, we get it. It's a movie.

But certain things about this bother us.

Ignore the fact that it's an MD-80; well kind of. With winglets. And hydraulic flight controls. And fuel dump capability. And the cockpit is wrong.

But since they call it a JR-88, we'll let all that slide. Maybe JR stands for Junkers-Ryan.

Our rental on iTunes has expired, so we have no way of double-checking these things. But here is what we noticed in one showing :

Captain doing the walk around? No. In the rain? Even more No.

Captain orders coffee during boarding when coffee is stowed. And he gets it right away.

Crew enters cockpit repeatedly when the door would be locked.

Accelerating to max speed to get through a storm is not a good idea.

They seemed to have pitch control (sometimes), even though the jackscrew was busted.

Captain talks way too much to ATC. During an emergency, it's :

1) Aviate
2) Navigate
3) Communicate

.. in that order. They talked so much on the radio I expected someone to order a pizza.

Extending flaps and gear at max speed would probably shred 'em all off.

Crew puts one engine to "full power" after pulling the fire handle which would have closed the fuel valves.

And just one more thing : Tex Johnson might disagree, but commercial planes can't fly upside down.

Other than those relatively minor details, the movie is "OK." We give it 3.60482 stars.

The official trailer :

             

Hawaiian Airlines DC-10 overshoot

We thought a motorboat audio soundtrack would be an appropriate way to wrap up our posts for the year 2012.

Here's an excerpt from the official investigatory transcipts of the cockpit tape:

Pilot 1 : "Let's evacuate this thing"

Pilot 2 : "Oh (...)"

        

Curiosity Plane Crash

British Airways Flight 206

Back on Friday the 13th, a 747-400 operating as flight BA206 departed Miami enroute to Heathrow.

Several hours into the flight, the plane was in cruise at FL350. It was 3AM; and most passengers were sleeping.

A prerecorded message suddenly errupted from the PA system:

"THIS IS AN EMERGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT. WE MAY SHORTLY NEED TO MAKE AN EMERGENCY LANDING ON WATER."

Then it played again ....

"THIS IS AN EMERGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT. WE MAY SHORTLY NEED TO MAKE AN EMERGENCY LANDING ON WATER."

A little while later, the cockpit crew told the passengers the message was played by mistake.

Passengers were also given a printed letter of apology as they deplaned in London.

N23BT Cessna 310 Seaplane

OK well, Sky King he's not. This chap was flying from Monterey, CA to Hilo, HI. He made it all the way except for the last 13 miles. Ran out of fuel. That crosswind component will getcha every time. Maybe he should have put some, "mileage enhancing pellets" in his tip tanks. Pilot is OK; discharged from hospital. As the saying goes, any landing you can swim away from is a good one. An ironic twist is that this guy once won United's "Halfway to Hawaii" game. USCG video that has no audio.