A British Airways 737 touched down at Frankfurt-am-Main. The tower controller, obviously in frivolous mood, transmitted: "Speedbird 123. Nice landing Captain, But a little left of the centre-line, I think." Quick as a flash, the BA Captain replied in a cool English accent: "Roger Frankfurt Tower. Perfectly correct. I am a little to the left of the centre-line. And my co-pilot is a little to the right of it."
Santa Claus’s checkflight
Hat tip to the Fly With Blake blog for finding and posting this video!
Loose fuel cap cuts a flight short
General Aviation News will often reprint excerpts from US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) accident reports, including one from December 2009 that involved a Cessna 182 in Bowie (Texas) that led to substantial damage to the aircraft and one minor injury – all because of a loose fuel cap (Check out another fuel cap incident we reported about back in 2010: “Don’t forget to tighten the fuel cap”).
Apparently, the pilot had topped off both fuel tanks with 40 gallons of fuel for each before departing on a cross-country flight. However, the pilot also told investigators that he had difficulty securing the fuel cap on the right wing tank.
After around two hours into the flight, the Cessna’s engine stopped producing power with the fuel selector on the left tank whose gauge read empty. The pilot then attempted to switch tanks but he was unable to restart the engine – forcing him to make a landing to a snow-covered field causing substantial damage to the aircraft’s wings, firewall and fuselage.
Both wing fuel tanks were empty with the right wing fuel cap being missing. Hence, the pilot’s failure to secure the fuel cap as well as monitor the available fuel supply was ruled as the cause of the crash.
The Air France 447 tragedy and the myth of the un-stallable airplane
Ron Rapp of the the House of Rapp blog has noted an extensive article in Popular Mechanics about Air France 447’s flight recorder transcripts that shed some light on what really happened in the cockpit as the aircraft plunged into the Atlantic Ocean near Brazil (also check out our post from last June: Air France 447 and pilot error: More questions than answers). Apparently, there was chaos and confusion in the cockpit and the Popular Mechanics article does a great job of showing this by reprinting various excerpts from the transcripts and then analyzing them.
Meanwhile, Ron noted similarities between the Air France 447 crash and the Colgan Air 3407 crash where the aircraft had stalled and the captain did not understand what was going on as he physically held the aircraft into a deadly deep stall all the way to impact. He also pointed out that these mistakes happened because:
…they did not believe the airplane could be stalled at all.
That’s on par with believing in the tooth fairy…
Ah, the myth of the un-stallable airplane! Is this what Airbus, airlines, and the FAA are allowing instructors to teach pilots?
Ron then went into some detail about stalls, aerodynamics and the fact that a stall can happen at any speed (along with computer and equipment failures) if the conditions are right – such as the thunderstorm Air France 447 flew right into. Moreover, Ron pointed out that in his experience, stalls are poorly understood by a majority of pilots – all the more reason to read both the Popular Mechanics article about the Air France 447 tragedy along with Ron’s further analysis of it.
Alec Baldwin mocks pilots and American Airlines on Saturday Night Live…
Actor Alec Baldwin, who recently got booted off an American Airlines flight for behaving badly, has appeared on Saturday Night Live’s "Weekend Update" segment dressed as an American Airlines captain wearing the three-stripe uniform of a first officer in order to apologize to himself.
However and in case you are in a location, most likely anywhere outside the USA, where you can’t watch the video, the segment is also available on Youtube here – until the copyright police pull them! Likewise, we have included the full transcript below as it appeared in the Dallas Morning News’ Airline Biz Blog.
Seth Meyers: "On Wednesday of this week, actor Alec Baldwin was kicked off an American Airlines flight after he refused to turn off his phone and stop playing ‘Words with Friends.’ Now here to comment, the pilot of that flight, Capt. Steve Rogers. Thanks so much for coming, captain."
Alec Baldwin: "Thanks for having me, Seth."
MEYERS: "So, Capt. Rogers, what’s your take on the events of last Wednesday?"
BALDWIN: "It was awful, Seth, which is why it was very important for me to come here tonight and, on behalf of everyone at American Airlines, issue an apology to Mr. Alec Baldwin."
MEYERS: In a stage whisper ("Alec, are you sure this is the right way to handle this?")
BALDWIN: ("Yeah, yeah, keep going, keep going.")
MEYERS: "So let me get this straight – you, Capt. Rogers, want to apologize to Alec Baldwin."
BALDWIN: "Yes, Mr. Baldwin is an American treasure, and I am ashamed at the way he was treated. I mean, what harm would it do to let him keep playing his game. Not any game, mind you, but a word game for smart people."
MEYERS: "But, Capt. Rogers, don’t phones interfere with the plane’s communications systems?"
BALDWIN: "Oh, you don’t believe that, do you, Seth? Would you really get on a plane that flew 30,000 feet in the air if you thought one Kindle switch could take it down? C’mon! It’s just a cruel joke perpetrated by the airline industry. We would have gotten away with it, but Alec Baldwin was just too smart for us. He really is something, Seth."
MEYERS: ("Seriously, Alec, I just don’t think this is…")
BALDWIN: ("Keep going, keep going.")
MEYERS: "But didn’t Alec Baldwin getting kicked off the airplane delay the takeoff?"
BALDWIN: "It did. It did. And it was the first time in the history of American Airlines that one of our flights was delayed. C’MON, SETH! We’re bankrupt. How dare we speak ill of the great Alec Baldwin and we can’t even take off on time?"
MEYERS: "It was also reported Alec Baldwin slammed the bathroom door so loudly that you could hear it in the cockpit."
BALDWIN: "Now, Seth, Words with Friends can be frustrating, and again, I just started to play the game myself. But when you think you’re about to play ‘JAILERS’ off of someone’s ‘QUICHE’ and then you realize that you don’t have the ‘I,’ let me tell you, that’ll make you slam the bathroom door, too. Besides, when I go to the bathroom on a plane, I always want that door slammed nice and tight, doesn’t everyone? Gee willikers!"
MEYERS: "Ok, Alec, this is too much. I don’t want to be part of this any more."
BALDWIN: "Seth, I’m not Alec. Do you hear me? But I wish I was. That man’s a hero, a smart hero."
MEYERS: (Sending Alec Baldwin off camera) "Capt. Steve Rogers!"
BALDWIN: "Y’all fly safe now."
When a mechanic accidentally leaves you a surprise…
Jason Miller recently wrote a post for the Let’s Go Flying blog that showed the importance of why you should do a THOROUGH preflight exam – especially after a mechanic has worked on your aircraft. Specifically, he (just barely) found a rag left in the cowling. Jason the wrote that:
The humbling truth is … if this wasn’t my first time in this make and model … and it didn’t have retractable gear … I probably would not have seen this oil soaked rag, wrapped like perfect kindling around a motor that was about to see temperatures in excess of 240 degrees.
The rag was only noticeable when you were “flat on your back looking up through the open gear doors.” Moreover, a pilot would have had to have been looking for it as it was only clearly visible after the cowling was removed. Hence and from now on, Jason teaches his students that during any preflight exam:
“…make sure to look inside the cowling for rags … or wrenches … or anything else a mechanic might have accidentally left inside the cowling. … yes, you’d be surprised, it can happen”
(Not to mention bird or wasp nests or whatever else could show up if the aircraft has been sitting on the tarmac for awhile…).
Jason did not mention whether or not he had a private word with the mechanic who left the rag inside the aircraft… (We can only imagine what was said…)
