Kieran Daly, editor of Flight International, said it was premature to speculate on the accident’s cause but in the absence of dangerous weather conditions there had likely been an engine problem and the aircraft did not have enough power to pull away.

Oh yeah, clearly too premature to speculate. Right.

But nobody can top Joe Sharkey for having some of the worst coverage out there on this accident. His most recent blog post states that “Lame coverage of the MD80 crash in Madrid continues in the media.” Oh sweet irony considering he has some of the lamest.

His first post on the subject said “The plane was an MD-80, a model of aging aircraft that has had well-documented safety problems in the last year.” Oh boy, here we go with the “aging aircraft” bull again. And the well-documented safety problems (I assume he’s talking about American’s MD-80 grounding) were not a safety-of-flight issue. In that first post of his I mentioned above, he yells at Spanair authorities for not looking something up. Maybe he should take his own advice.

A quick check found that this aircraft was EC-HFP. And a visit to Airfleets.net shows us that this plane was first delivered to Korean Air in late 1993. So, an airplane that’s not even 15 years old is aging? I think not. That’s a relatively new aircraft.

Joe also goes on to cite all the previous MD-80 crashes and asks us to “note the more recent incidents and similarities to what apparently occurred on an MD80 that went off the runway and broke up today in Madrid.”

Again, we don’t know what happened in Madrid, but I don’t see anything on the five most recent accidents that look similar to me. One had a fire in the cabin that was apparently started by someone on board. One had problems with both engines at cruise, which sounds like fuel contamination. Two skidded off the runway in bad weather. And one disappeared from radar and crashed shortly after.

This is all just scare tactics, and it has no actual value. Is there a reason for someone stepping on an American Airlines MD-80 today to be more concerned than they were last week? No way. Please try to ignore this sort of irresponsible journalism and wait until we know all the details.

Original source: http://themot.org/gallery/d/45773-2/gas_prices.jpg

I was in third grade at the time, and I remember being outside during recess when my friend came running out with the news. None of us believed him. Our logic said that if we could always hear the shuttle when it landed (at least, we could hear the sonic booms), then we certainly would have heard the shuttle explode. I suppose we forgot that it launched in Florida and NOT California.

When we returned to the classroom, our teacher sat us all down and explained what had happened, or at least what she knew. Then we watched it on television. Many of us were Young Astronauts, and we were all devastated. There are only a handful of national tragedies that make such an impression that you remember them clearly for as long as you live. This was the first to impact me in that way.

So, let’s all remember the crew of STS-51L. Michael J. Smith, Dick Scobee, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, and Judith Resnik all lost their lives on January 28, 1986.

What you’ll be amazed to know is that back in 1983, it ran out of fuel at cruising altitude due to an error converting between metric and imperial measurements. The skilled crew was able to glide the airplane down for over 100 miles, line up with an old abandoned military runway that was being used for go-kart races at that instant, and successfully bring the plane back to Earth without killing a single person. Sure the nose gear collapsed, but the plane was to be repaired and fly for 25 more years.

Where is Gimli, you ask? It’s about 55 miles north of Winnipeg. Where is Winnipeg? Find the border between North Dakota and Minnesota and head north.

If you’d like some more reading on this topic, there’s a good article on the retirement here. You can also buy a book and a movie that were made on the subject.

Everyone got off ok, and that’s pretty amazing. I spent the day yesterday going back and forth with a bunch of airline dork friends discussing what could have possibly caused this to happen. The weather was good and there weren’t any visibility issues, so that’s unlikely to have been the problem. There were reports that the engines failed, so what would have caused it? Did it run out of fuel? Maybe, though unlikely. It didn’t catch on fire, so that’s always possible.

I know, I should really keep out of this whole speculation game. Remember that potential “undular bore” that the Air Canada plane may have hit? Well, there are now reports that it could have been wake turbulence from a 747 passing in front of it. Not nearly as interesting, but certainly plausible. So, it makes me want to reserve judgment on this accident even though it’s so interesting.

The Daily Mail, however, has no problem speculating that it may have been a bird strike that shut down both engines simultaneously just a minute before landing. They have a bunch of incredible pictures and more details on the site. The odds of that seem so unbelievably small. It made me wonder which was more unlikely: that scenario or Randy Johnson hitting a bird over home plate with his fastball a few years back.

Well, it doesn’t matter. They’ll figure it out soon enough, I’m sure. It’s interesting to note that this is the first major accident I can think of involving a 777. That’s a very long and impressive safety record.

But back to my original point. That plane is still sitting at the threshold to the runway, so it may cause delays. Right now, I believe the runway is open to departing flights. (”And please don’t look to your right, ladies and gentlemen.”) Yesterday, when the runway was closed, most short haul flights were canceled or diverted so that long hauls could run. I imagine that the runway may need to close on and off for investigation and removal, so short haul flights may be affected again.

Watch the trees at the very beginning. As the waves roll by, the winds quickly shift direction. That’s just cool. But this post makes it sound like this isn’t the rarest event. It actually happens quite often, though you often can’t see it because there are no clouds to show it. That’s a stark contrast to the original article saying it’s an extremely rare event. Maybe it’s only rare at such high altitude. I’m just not sure. Pretty cool stuff though, huh?

I’m just glad I didn’t have fly through it. Then again, it’s nice to know that flying through such violent air only resulted in some minor injuries and the plane landed safely.

If that doesn’t make you crap your pants, I’m not sure what will. There are just so many problems here that could have been avoided with ground-based radar. It’s a foggy night in Providence so you can’t see much outside. The United pilots get lost on landing and incorrectly state their location as being near inactive runway 25R instead of active runway 25L. That’s bad enough to cause problems. Meanwhile, the controller really blows it. Despite the aircraft saying they were near Taxiway Kilo and hearing a plane fly right overhead, the controller doesn’t pick up that they must be nowhere near runway 23R and on 23L instead.

The hero here? Obviously the US Airways pilots. Had they departed as directed by the controller, they very well could have taken the top off that United aircraft . . . or worse. Fortunately they had the good sense to wait the whole thing out until everyone knew where everyone else was. Wow.

Coming from the capital of runway incursions here in LA, I certainly hope we can get some funding together for better coverage of what’s happening on the ground.

This thread questions who is ultimately at fault, and I’d have to go with the pilot on this one. I mean, the truck may not have been parked in the right place, but it was NOT MOVING. Then again, an Enterprise shuttle van hit my stopped car at the airport earlier this year and they’re saying it’s not their fault, so who knows. (Note to everyone: Don’t rent from Enterprise)

Most interesting to me is this Lusaka Times article that says it was ship ZS-SJD. If they’re right, and they may not be considering they misidentified the 737-800 as a 737-700, then this is the exact plane I flew out of Lusaka back to Johannesburg back in December 2003. Neat.